


out there, living in the sun

by hailingstars



Series: irondad bingo [9]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, Evil Richard Parker, Food Issues, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Human Experimentation, Hydra Peter Parker, Kidnapping, Minor Character Death, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Peter Parker is a Mess, Plants, Recovery, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21694885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hailingstars/pseuds/hailingstars
Summary: “W-what’s happening?” whispered Peter. He wiggled around on his bed, trying to shrug the hand off his shoulder. “Get off me!”“Calm down, son,” said the other man. “We’re going to get you out of here.”“Captain America? Get me out of here?” asked Peter, squinting his eyes and tilting his head. Iron Man hoisted him out of bed, and the covers went with him, hitting the floor by Peter’s feet. “Oh cool, I’m being kidnapped.”“Not exactly the term I would use.”ORThe Avengers rescue Peter from a Hydra base ran by his father, Richard Parker, except Peter doesn't really see it as a rescue, and has trouble settling into a new life away from Hydra and his father at the Avengers compound.ORPeter learns how to be an actual teenager, live life, and put his abusive past behind him, and Tony learns how to be a father.Irondad Bingo: Hydra
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Richard Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: irondad bingo [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1369099
Comments: 458
Kudos: 1898





	1. ugly things

**Author's Note:**

> so I'm back from nanowrimo with this hydra fic, it's gonna be a sort of long one, guys, so I hope you're along for the ride 
> 
> also I haven't forgot about good kid, new fic is in the works, I actually have the first chapter written but I'm waiting until I have the whole thing done to post so I can post the whole fic on consecutive days 
> 
> anyways thanks for reading and hope you enjoy

Peter left the manor in a hurry, not even bothering to stop and pick up the ugly vase he’d knocked over on his way out. That was the problem with Peter Parker, as his father would be happy to tell you. He just didn’t care.

Didn’t care about the manor where he lived, or its history, no matter how many his dad recited it to him. Peter saw past all the myths and stories and great things that were said to have happened there and saw it for what it was in that moment, old and decrepit and rotting from within. Small, sharp pieces of wood stuck out from the interior, stabbing and sticking into anyone who dared to get to close.

They didn’t have to worry about that often, though. The manor stood in the middle of a forest, hidden by trees and mountains. No one found it unless they were sent there, or unless they were looking, and not many people were.

Oftentimes Peter complained that he would like to move. He pictured himself in the city, surrounded by people, or in a school, with actual people his age, instead of holed up on the second-floor study with a private tutor.

Oftentimes his dad complained about his complaints. His were wiser, more sophisticated complaints. His complaints always carried the undertone of an order.

“You should be grateful,” he’d tell him. “I’m breaking history in this house, and you don’t even care. You can’t even be bothered to help out in the lab from time to time.”

Oftentimes Peter dug his fingernails into his sweaty palms. It was a lot safer than rolling his eyes.

Peter cared less about the lab and his dad’s experiments than he did the manor, where they were performed. Didn’t care about the screaming he heard through the walls, or how it never seemed to stop, even when he put headphones over his ears. Didn’t even care that he _could_ hear through the walls, thanks to Richard’s research into cross genetics and that incident with the spider.

Maybe his dad was right, then. Maybe he should feel grateful.

Most people who wound up in his dad’s lab left on a stretcher with a thin, white sheet covering their limp, lifeless bodies. Peter didn’t care about that, either, if you were wondering. He didn’t.

Sometimes their screaming was just annoying. It got to him. Nagged at him, ate away until it drove him out of the manor and into the woods that surrounded it, where if he walked long enough and far enough, he couldn’t hear it anymore. Sometimes he just had to escape. Sometimes, like now.

His tennis shoes crunched down against dirt, leaves, twigs, and he tugged his jacket closer to his skin, wishing he’d thought to grab something heavier to throw on before he fled the manor. That was another one of Peter’s problems, according to his father. He never really stopped to think things all the way through.

Peter paused on the path when the screaming died down, then cut off altogether. A shiver went down his spine, one he pretended had more to do with the cold than it did with death. He looked around the forest, as if he might be able to spot a ghost if he looked hard enough, before shaking his head and continuing down the path.

“Get it together, Pete,” he mumbled to himself, rubbing his temple, the screaming echoing through his thoughts although it was no longer really there.

He took a deep breath, then released, watching the air that flowed from his mouth turn white. Rays of sunlight reflected through the mist, causing Peter to look up at sky and remember something his mother used to say.

_“Fresh air and a little bit of sunlight can fix anything.”_

Her voice played through his thoughts, accompanied by her smile. Memories of her that were so blurry, so out of focus and bright, and so filled with something that warmed him up from the inside, that Peter had trouble believing they were memories and not just dreams, not just something his mind fabricated to make it seem like it was possible for things to be fixed.

Real or fake, the memory and the words replayed over and over until his head was clear, until he almost walked straight into the fence that surrounded the property where the manor stood. The metal was rusty, just as the manor was splintery, and completely useless at keeping people out, if they even wanted inside.

Peter couldn’t imagine anyone did. He suspected the fence, as tall as it was, was built to keep people in.

A pathetic whining brought Peter’s attention to the ground, where he saw a rabbit tangled up in plastic that had once held a six-pack of beers together. The idiotic guards were always out here drinking, but not bothered cleaning up after themselves.

Peter crouched down and hesitantly reached his hand out. “Just don’t bite me, okay?”

The rabbit continued whining in response but didn’t try to bite him as Peter untangled its paws from the plastic and picked it up, using both hands to cradle it. He stretched out his arms and released it on the other side of the fence, feeling lucky that the animal had the good sense to keep hopping in that direction, away from the manor and the screaming.

Peter watched him go, then picked up the plastic off the ground.

“How endearing.”

Peter turned, slow and annoyed, and made his eyes extra cold when he saw it was Whelan speaking to him. He least favorite guard, and Hydra’s biggest reject.

A cigarette hung out of his mouth, like usual, and a blank stare crossed his face, also like usual.

“You really shouldn’t litter,” Peter told him, sliding the plastic into his pocket to throw away once he was home.

Whelan eyed at him. He took the lit cigarette from his mouth and let it fall to the ground. A childish protest, but one Peter couldn’t blame him for. His hostility wasn’t unprovoked.

Whelan was the subject of Peter’s own experiments, which, by his own admission, were much more like juvenile pranks than they were scientific, though he supposed they weren’t completely pointless.

He _did_ have a hypothesis. Peter wanted to know how many times he had to turn Whelan’s hair purple or nearly burn his tongue off with tempered tooth paste before the man quit his job and left.

Once he made Whelan so ill Richard himself had gotten involved, telling Peter to tone it down. Replacing guards was a hassle, even more of hassle if one was dead. The paperwork, Richard told him, the paperwork would give him a headache.

“The boss wants to talk to you.”

“I thought he was busy,” said Peter.

“His engagement finished early.”

Peter’s stomach knotted and bubbled with dread. He hated seeing his father after failed experiments.

He diverted his eyes back to the lit cigarette laying on the ground.

“Don’t you know smoking is bad for you?” asked Peter, looking back up. “And the wildlife. You’re going to start a fire one of these days.”

“Just start walking,” Whelan growled out. “Nobody has time for your games today.”

“When do they ever?”

Peter’s question was met with another growl and with a turned back. Whelan did have the decency to smear the cigarette into the ground with his shoe, putting the fire out, before marching back off into the forest. Peter supposed he could try to be happy about that. He might have been walking off to his doom, but at least he’d won the interaction.

*

Wood creaked under Peter’s feet as he climbed the stairs up to the manor’s second story, heading to his dad’s office. The room stood at the end of the hallway, and the door had been left open. That didn’t stop Peter from knocking, softly, with the back of his hand, until he was told he could enter.

Richard Parker stood with his back turned, staring out the large window. He was still wearing his white lab coat over his clothes. Peter ignored the small drops of blood splattered across the white, and instead focused on the light streaming in through the window. Light that made the specks of dust floating around sparkle like stars.

“Y-you wanted to see me, dad?” asked Peter, shuffling his feet in place, but refusing to move any closer to the man standing next to the window.

It left a comfortable distance between them, as Richard’s office was the largest room in the manor. Once, it had been the master bedroom, but after Peter’s mother died, Richard threw out everything all their shared belongings, or at least, everything Peter hadn’t secretly smuggled away and hid in the antic.

The bed had been replaced with a large, oak desk that sat crooked in the very center of the room. Piles of books lay open, some of the floor, some on the tattered armchairs, and some piled high on the desk, piled over stacks of loose papers.

“Yes, Peter,” said Richard, then turned on his heel. He straightened his coat, and stared Peter down. It made him want to sink into the wood. “I have some good news.”

Peter stayed where he was and anchored his expectations to the ground. He and Richard rarely had the same definition of good.

“We’re moving.”

Then, just like that, with those words, only those words, that anchor started to move, shift in place. Something fluttered around in Peter’s stomach, a feeling so unfamiliar he didn’t have a name for it, and as much as he tried to pull his excitement back down to reality – what he knew to be reality – the idea of leaving the manor behind left him unable to contain it.

Peter took a couple of steps closer. More floorboards groaned under his feet.

“We’re… moving?”

“Yes,” said Richard, his voice snapped with annoyance. “That’s what I just said. They need me elsewhere. There’s a headquarters in Canada with better equipment and better opportunities for you. They have a school, kids your age, sons and daughters of agents. It’ll be good for you.”

Peter frowned. Logic told him people who worked for Hydra were rarely concerned with having children, and less so about taking care of them and sending them to school, but the idea of having friends, of just having people around who weren’t the guards and doomed to his father’s lab was powerful. More powerful than logic could ever hope to be.

“So, there’s going to be a lot of people there, then? People my age?”

“Yes, so kind of you to keep up,” said Richard, turning back towards the window, and making no effort to mask the annoyance in his tone. “Honestly the things you choose to get excited about are troubling, you’re delighted by the idea of meeting friends and yet completely ignorant about all the progress I’ve made being here.”

Peter’s eyes drifted away from his father and trailed across the wrecked floor, wondering what exactly he meant by progress. People screamed and yelled down in the lab. They died. Some lasted longer than others, but for the most part, it was always the same. Maybe Peter and his dad had different definitions of progress, too.

“Ah, well, guess it can’t be helped,” continued Richard. He gave Peter another look, up and down, and there was something there in his eyes that didn’t seem quite right, that seemed calculating. “Well, run along. Pack a bag. Just the essentials, the movers will get the rest. We leave in the morning.”

He nodded, and made a move towards the door, only to pause when his dad stopped him one last time.

“And Peter,” he said.

“Yeah, dad?”

“Don’t forget to take your dinner supplement,” he told him. “It’s important to keep your levels up.”

“I won’t,” said Peter, then left without another word.

He headed downstairs to the kitchen, quickly mixed all the correct powders together for a dinnertime nutrient shake and forced it down his throat. It wasn’t that bad, if he chugged it fast and rinsed his mouth out with water right after, which was exactly what he did.

Next he snuck up to the attic to retrieve the books he hid there, the books he saved from when his father decided to purge all his mother’s things from the manor. Peter blew dust off the cover of an old, tattered book he remembered his mom reading, and decided that it would come with him to wherever he went next.

He packed a bag, then spent the rest of the evening counting the seconds until he would go to sleep, just so he could wake up and be on his way to someplace better.

*

Peter’s dreams were the same as being awake, filled with screaming that rattled around, loose, in his head, and didn’t stop. They weren’t the screams of anyone important, but still, they haunted him while he slept, and he couldn’t figure out why.

Strangers who died in the manor were not anyone enough to think about during the day, let alone worry about in his sleep. They weren’t even people. Not really. His dad had explained that to him a long time ago, that their lives had little meaning outside what they could provide with their deaths.

That he was helping them be useful to humanity, and their unwilling sacrifice was absolutely necessary for scientific advancement.

His dreams were different, though, that night everything changed. It was his mother screaming at him, and her scream was jarring enough to jolt him out of one nightmare and catapult him straight into another.

Peter’s eyes opened with a snap. Hovering above his bed were two glowing eyes, attached to a robot-looking man, and there was a metal hand covering his mouth.

“Don’t scream,” ordered Iron Man. Peter could that it was unmistakably Iron Man in his bedroom, now that his eyes were adjusting. Another man hovered nearby, shuffling his feet.

The hand that covered Peter’s mouth moved to his shoulder.

“W-what’s happening?” whispered Peter. He wiggled around on his bed, trying to shrug the hand off his shoulder. “Get off me!”

“Calm down, son,” said the other man. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

“Captain America? Get me out of here?” asked Peter, squinting his eyes and tilting his head. Iron Man hoisted him out of bed, and the covers went with him, hitting the floor by Peter’s feet. “Oh cool, I’m being kidnapped.”

“Not exactly the term I would use.”

Peter wanted to ask Captain America if he had a better word for kidnapping but decided he shouldn’t waste time slinging words when his fists worked just fine. He took a swung at Iron Man, only it was sloppy from sleep and easily caught by a metal hand. Pain shot through his fist, and when he tried to withdraw it, Iron Man held on tight.

“Out of the two of us,” said Iron Man, his robotic voice dull and bored. “Why would you try to take out the one covered in armor?”

“Oh, you know, just testing a theory,” answered Peter, trying to pull his hand out of Iron Man’s grip. He was disappointed with the conclusion his test brought. He always kind of figured since the spider incident he’d be stronger than Iron Man, stronger than the Avengers. He always thought the was sort of the point.

Briefly he considered, if he ever regained control of his fist, crawling up to the ceiling and staying there until the Avengers either knocked him down with a broom or gave up and left, but unfortunately for Peter, it didn’t seem as if Iron Man would ever let go.

“I’m gonna tell you how this is gonna play out, so listen up,” said Iron Man. “You’re going to come with us, without a fight, or it’s gonna get really ugly, really fast.”

“Things are already ugly.” The words slipped out of Peter’s mouth before he could think about them.

Captain America opened his mouth, but not even a syllable left his lips before he was silenced by Iron Man’s index finger pointed at him.

“Ugly for you, maybe,” said Iron Man. “But if you’re quiet, and you come with us, we’ll leave your dad and everyone else alone. Just being honest, here, I don’t think Richard would survive the type of prison they’ll put him in, do you, Cap?”

“Uh, no,” he answered, though he hesitated and sounded unsure.

Peter didn’t have to think about it to make a decision. He knew where he fell in the Hydra hierarchy, and if it was a choice between him or his dad, Richard was more important, more useful to Hydra doing his research. It was obvious. Peter didn’t even really a choice, especially now that he saw he was outmatched. 

“Fine, I’ll go with you,” said Peter. Iron Man immediately let go of his hand at his answer, causing him to stumble backwards and catch sight of his bag, packed and ready for a new life in a place.

It figured the night before he was about to get everything he always wanted something like this would happen. Parker luck.

Peter beckoned towards his bag on the floor. “Can I at least take my stuff?”

“Got any weapons? Any traceable electronics?”

“No.”

Unless a book was a weapon, Peter had nothing of the sort, though now he wished he had packed one.

He thought Iron Man might ask to search his bag, but, surprisingly, he took his word for it. He nodded his approval, and Peter picked up his bag off the floor and slung it over his shoulder. He slipped on some tennis shoes, then was ushered out of his bedroom by the two Avengers.

Keeping his part of the deal, he kept his mouth shut as they crept through the hallway and passed Richard’s closed bedroom door.

Something childish, something he shoved deep down and hoped wouldn’t surface, wanted to yell out and pound on his door. He didn’t, though. He held it together by reminding himself that now, in that situation, Richard didn’t need a son. He needed a sacrifice, and Peter was willing.

*

They walked for a long time. They walked through the forest, creeping past Whelan and the other guards knocked out cold on the trail, along the same path Peter had used earlier as his temporary escape. They walked through a hole in the fence, one Peter assumed Iron Man had created when he and Captain America broke in.

Once they were outside the perimeter, Iron Man took his faceplate down, and although his armor stayed intact, he became a different person.

Tony Stark wasn’t robotic like Iron Man. His eyes were tired, his jaw tight, his movements annoyed. He had a phone and he kept checking it, as if kidnapping Peter wasn’t a threat to his safety, or at least not one worthy of his whole and undivided attention. That was a little insulting, sure, but Captain America grated at his nerves even more.

At least Stark had the decency to be properly stressed. Captain America was collected, he moved through the trees, the exposed roots and fallen branches with ease, even with just the tiny flashlight they used as their guide through the dark.

They came to stop when they got to a clearing, partly because Stark was checking his phone, and partly because, with horror, Peter realized they had reached their destination.

It was negative,” announced Stark, making his phone disappear back into the Iron Man armor. What that meant, Peter wasn’t sure, but he knew Stark didn’t sound happy about it. Just more of the same. Just annoyed, and a little grumpy.

“That’s good news, right?” asked Captain America. “You were just saying you weren’t ready – “

“-Is that a plane?” Peter blurted out, interrupting them both. “I can’t – I don’t – I can’t get on a plane.”

“It isn’t a plane. It’s a jet, so you’re good,” said Tony. He reached out to grab Peter’s arm, to tug him forward, but Peter took a step back.

He narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. “I don’t care what it is. I’m not getting on it.”

“Yes you are.”

“No I’m not.”

Stark stuck out a finger and waved at it around at him. “You’re getting on that jet even if I have to put you on it.”

“Tony – “

“Yeah, yeah, I got it in prep, okay, Cap? Be nice to the kid,” said Stark. “Getting him the hell out of here is the nicest thing we could be doing, even if we have to use force.”

Stark took a sudden stride forward, and Peter’s reflexes got mixed up. He should’ve thrown another punch, but instead he froze in place. He flinched, and waited for the strike to come, but it never did. When Peter looked up, back at Stark, he was squinting back at him, the annoyance drained from his face, replaced with something else.

They stared at each other, and it was quiet. A breeze blew through the bare trees, Captain America shifted from foot to foot, somewhere a dog or a wolf howled. Nobody screamed.

Tony took a careful, slow step forward and grabbed his wrist, tugged him forward, towards the jet. “Come on.”

Peter stepped up and climbed into the jet, and everything became real. What he was doing, what he was leaving behind, that he wasn’t a sacrifice, but instead a clown. The sleep juices in his brain were gone. He was thinking clearly, so he knew if the Avengers had wanted Richard, they would’ve taken him, no matter what Peter did or didn’t do.

Which meant he’d been the target all along, and he left willingly, without a sound, with leaving any clue who’d taken him or where he was going.

“You tricked me,” said Peter, sitting down and looking up at Tony Stark, who only stared blankly as he sat down beside him.

Captain America, who disappeared behind the co-pilots chair, muttered something that sounded like, “So much for gaining his trust.”

Someone replied back to him. Someone sitting behind the control panel. Whoever they were, Peter hoped they knew what they were doing when it came to flying a fancy Avenger jets. His stomach tightened just being inside of it, and when the engine revved to life, Peter’s hands found the edges of his seat, his heart jumped around in his chest, his eyes darted around the small, dark space.

“Kid.”

Peter met Tony’s eyes.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

“My mom died in a plane crash.”

If his father taught him anything, it was that there was a time for telling the truth and that time was usually around the very second when it would do the most damage, cause the most hurt. Peter had been aiming for guilt with his admission, but Tony’s face remained blank in the darkness and he had no idea if he’d hit his mark.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he repeated. “My jets don’t fall out of the sky.”

Peter frowned, wondering if his arrogance was supposed to comforting, and frowning even deeper when he realized it actually kind of was. Still, he brought his legs up to his chest, buried his head into his knees, and hugged his legs as the jet lifted into the air.

Being terrified was one thing, but letting the enemy see him terrified was another, and if there was just one thing Peter was certain of about his new situation, it was that the Avengers were his enemies.


	2. a dying plant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy Friday!! hope you all are having a great holiday season!!

There was a plant on Tony’s workstation, and while he waited for the inevitable, it mocked him, with its droopy leaves and its melancholy attitude, with its very presence down in Tony’s workshop in the Avenger’s Compound.

The plant only had one job, to stay alive, and it was failing miserably. Dying just to mock him, probably, dying just because Tony was depending on it to stay alive.

Tony blamed the pregnancy scare.

He wouldn’t even have a plant to worry about if Pepper’s period hadn’t been late, or if the test would have come back positive, or if he hadn’t barged into Pepper’s office days after the stick turned red, with wild dreams of actually, one day, becoming a father. 

“You don’t want a kid,” Pepper had told him, before returning her stare back down on the tablet in front of her.

“No, see,” said Tony. “I _didn’t_ want one, when you thought you might be pregnant, but now that we know you’re not – I just got to thinking about it, and a kid – well, a kid sounds like a great idea.”

Pepper had tilted her head at him, paused a few beats, before her eyes flickered back and forth between him and the spikey, green plant that sat inside a brown pot on her desk. She stood, picked it up, then pushed it into his hands.

“Here, take this plant,” she had told him. “If it’s still alive in two weeks, we’ll talk about a baby, but for now, please leave.” She kissed his cheek. “You’re distracting me, and I have a busy day.”

That’d been three days ago, and with the way it was looking now, Tony doubted it’d make it through the week. A stupid, lifeless, plant. He wanted to swipe it off his workstation and down into the garbage can below, but he resisted.

Instead, he forced his eyes back to his computer screen, where the Compound’s security footage was pulled up. He watched the inevitable, the teenage terror known as Peter Parker, creep through the hallways. 

He did his best to keep his footwork light. He paused when halls came to an end. He peaked around corners, careful not to be seen. It made Tony feel kind of bad. He was trying so hard, and Tony was about to crush his efforts into the ground.

Tony shifted his attention to a second screen, where more surveillance footage played. He watched Peter walk towards a rickety fence in the middle of the woods, the same one that surrounded the Hydra house of horrors. Peter helped a bunny out of some plastic and gently placed him on the other side of the fence.

Tony paused it. He rewound, played it again, and tried to reconcile that boy to the one who was currently sneaking through the halls.

It’d been a week since the rescue, since they yanked him out of Hydra hell, and it’d been nothing but drama ever since.

Tony supposed he should’ve expected that, from the very first night, Peter wasn’t going to make this easy, for himself, or for the Avengers.

Peter’s legs had been visibly wobbly as when they had stepped off the jet, after the flight from the Hydra manor, so wobbly Tony offered his help and was flatly refused, with a glare and with a comment with so much bite it was as if Tony had spoken the words.

He had looked small. Just a frightened child in his pajamas and tennis shoes, shaking and being led to a small conference room on the Compound’s first floor. They had asked him questions he refused to answer. They gave him food he refused to eat. That first night, they had given up and let the boy go to sleep, after assigning him a bedroom in Steve’s suite.

The situation hadn’t improved with sleep, though.

Peter’s hunger strike, for instance, persisted the next couple of days, until Steve gave in and let him drink nutrient shakes instead of eating meals.

Escape attempts became a regular occurrence. There weren’t any locks on Peter’s door, or Steve’s suite, but the Tower’s security was smarter than locks. His movements were monitored, and there was always an Avenger assigned to watch out for him, assigned to take him back to bed, even if that meant shooting him with a tranquilizer and carrying him there. 

Soon, Peter figured out he wasn’t going anywhere fast, and switched up his tactics. He snuck out of his room only to explore the Compound, but he still tried escaping, in less obvious ways.

Steve came down with a mysterious bout of food poisoning that left him with his head in the toilet, puking for hours, so he quit leaving his food unattended. Washing his hair left him itching at his scalp, so he locked his toiletries up in a cabinet. Items went missing, only to turn up later in random places, and the Avengers, mostly Steve, were tired.

It was sort of like living with an angry ghost, except that ghost was a real, breathing teenager out to make their lives as miserable as possible. A ghost who was opening the door to Tony’s workshop, and stepping inside, unaware that he could be seen.

Tony cleared his throat, loudly, and Peter jumped. He froze in place, his shoulders drooping down and his face falling. He took a couple of hesitant steps backwards while maintaining eye contact, then angled his body towards the door where he came, as if Tony planned on just letting him walk away.

“Hey,” said Tony. “Hold it.”

Peter stopped, turned back around, listened. He might have been a terror, but at least he was an obedient one. Tony couldn’t figure out if it made him feel grateful or uneasy.

“Come over here.”

He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pajamas pants and shuffled across the floor with his head down, eventually sliding onto the stool next to Tony.

“Wanna explain why you’re trying to sneak into my workshop?”

Peter shrugged, folded his arms together, rested them on the workstation, and stared straight ahead at the plant, seemingly determined not to look Tony’s way. 

“Well it was a stupid thing to do,” Tony told him. “The only person who sleeps less than you around here is me.”

“Your plant’s dying,” said Peter. “I thought you were supposed to be a genius. It needs sunlight to survive, and there aren’t even any windows down here.” Finally, he made eye-contact, then tilted his head at him. “Are you even watering it?”

“Uh excuse me, I _am_ a genius,” said Tony, with a snap, realizing too late that it was a bit ridiculous to be offended by something an angry teenager said. “Are you really lecturing me about my plant?” 

“Maybe you shouldn’t have one if you can’t take care of it.”

“Uh huh,” said Tony. He reached his arm down under the desk and found the two bottles of chemicals he’d put there earlier. He placed both in front of Peter, who grew a little pale. “That’s what you’re after, then? More ingredients to poison Steve’s food with?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Can’t fool me, kid, so do yourself a favor and knock it off. Give Steve a break, okay? Quit messing with his stuff.”

Peter looked away from him, back at the plant on the desk. He went quiet and became still, leaving Tony to only wonder and guess at what he was thinking. The thing about Peter was that he wasn’t that hard to figure, wasn’t hard to look past what he chose to show other people and see that he was still just that scared child on a plane.

Just a kid who believe, with his whole heart and soul that Tony and the Avengers were the bad guys, and he’d been kidnapped.

“I know you don’t actually want to hurt anyone; you would’ve done it by now,” said Tony. “Just know that these tricks aren’t helping you go anywhere. We’re not gonna get scared off by these games.”

“I won’t do it again,” said Peter, his voice soft. Tony would’ve almost believed it was sincere if it hadn’t been followed by a question. “Have you heard anything? About my dad?”

“Nope. Not yet.”

Maybe, someday, Tony would be able to tell this kid the truth, but today wasn’t that day. All his questions, about why he was taken, what was happening with Hydra, what was happening with Richard, would have to go unanswered, at least for now.

It was just as well. Tony suspected Peter wasn’t really ready to hear the truth, and probably wouldn’t believe it if they told him.

“Okay, well,” said Tony. “It’s late. Let’s get you back to bed.”

“No, wait,” said Peter. Tony paused, one foot on the ground and the other on the base of the stool. “I just thought – you know, maybe I can help you… with whatever it is you’re doing.”

Tony considered him, studied him with a look that made Peter start fidgeting, until he swiped his brown hair off his forehead and broke the silence.

“It’s just really… loud, in my head. I can’t really fall asleep.”

Probably, it was the first honest sentence Peter had spoken since coming live at the compound. It’d be counterproductive to let it go unrewarded, so Tony handed him a wrench, and they got to work.

*

Steve was the next person to wander into Tony’s workshop uninvited.

He had dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was unkempt, sticking straight up and in wild directions. He moved slow, like a zombie, and he groaned like one when he saw Peter Parker passed out on the floor, with a wrench still locked tighter between his fingers.

“I set an alarm,” said Steve, his voice raspy. “It was supposed to wake me up if he left his room.”

“He disabled it.”

The reply came quick, and even if Tony didn’t know for sure if it was true, he believed it was. Having his help in the workshop the last couple of hours had clued him in. Peter incredibly intelligent, more so than they originally thought.

“Turns out Banner and I aren’t the only resident geniuses around here anymore.” 

“That’s… troubling,” said Steve, scratching his head.

“Not more troubling than where he came from.”

Steve nodded his head in agreement and took a seat on the same stool Peter had been using earlier. He yawned, covering his face with his hand, as he looked down at Peter fast asleep on the floor.

“I’m dropping him off at the raft tomorrow,” said Steve, only elaborating when Tony nearly snapped his neck with a sudden turn to raise an eyebrow at him. “Just temporarily, I was hoping he’d settle down by now, before we have to go and finish this, but he’s- “

“-Not settled.”

“Yeah,” said Steve. “And dangerous, if there’s no one around to check his strength.”

“The raft isn’t a daycare, Cap.”

“I don’t like it either. But what else can we do?”

Tony watched as Peter’s chest moved up and down, slow and steady and peaceful, at least in his sleep. He looked smaller, younger, less like a terror and more like someone who’d be terrorized. The raft wasn’t an option for him. Putting the kid in a high security prison was no way to win his trust, to prove to Peter that they weren’t the bad guys here.

“I’ll stay behind this time,” said Tony. “I’ll watch him.”

“Tony,” said Steve. “We need everyone on this.”

“You don’t really. The one threat we were worried about has been removed from the situation.”

_And was an actual child._

That part remained unspoken but echoed around in the room anyway.

When they’d intercepted the message that a new weapon was being transferred to the very Hydra base they were looking to raid, it’d almost ruined their plans. Almost. They intercepted more messages, and with each one, they learned more, like the weapon wasn’t really a weapon, but a boy.

A boy the Avengers resolved to remove from the equation before he ever step foot inside the base, for two reasons.

The first was to save an innocent kid from being turned into the Winter Solider 2.0, and the second was even simpler. They needed him out of the crossfire. Nobody wanted to fight a kid, or hurt one, if it came to that, and at the time, they didn’t have a clear understanding about his powers.

Oftentimes Tony wondered if even Peter had a clear understanding of his powers, if he even knew his own strength, or if he’d been so beaten down he was holding something back.

“Richard sure did a number on his boy, didn’t he?” asked Steve.

“That’s not even the worst part,” said Tony. Steve met his eyes. “The worst part is when he realizes what’s happened. How it was supposed to be.”

The image of Peter flinching instead of fighting back became clear in Tony’s mind. He didn’t think he’d ever forget, as it was colored with guilt and filled with callbacks to all the times Tony had flinched.

“I guess you’ll have to stay behind.”

Tony nodded. It was the obvious solution, and clear to Tony just like not putting locks on the door had been clear. The boy was already wounded, nobody wanted to make the damage any worse than it already was.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” said Tony. “Mind carrying him up to the suite?”

Steve gently pulled him up off the floor by one arm and slung him over his shoulder. To both their shock, Peter stayed asleep, only making a few inaudible noises.

Tony grabbed the plant on his desk, before him and Steve left the workshop and took the elevator up to Tony’s suite.

Sun streamed in through the full windows that lined the wall of Tony’s living room, the first clue for him about how long he and Peter had been working. He ditched the plant on the floor, right beside the window-wall, hoping it wasn’t too late to save his plant and the bet with Pepper, while Steve gently put Peter on the couch.

He made a few more noises, shifted around a little bit, but ultimately, stayed asleep.

“Good luck, Tony.”

“Yeah, you too. Don’t get killed.”

As Steve disappeared into the elevator, Tony wondered which of them had the hardest job. Steve, leading the Avenger’s into a Hydra base, or Tony, left to watch over a disgruntled, super-powered teenager.

Tony unfolded a blanket and tossed it across the boy on his couch. He could do this, he told himself, he could definitely do this. Maybe he’d be better at taking care of a teenager than he was taking care of a plant.

*

“Alright, that’s enough.”

Tony stood in front of the couch, where Peter was still sleeping, even hours later and well into the afternoon, and Tony had had enough. It wasn’t fair. If Tony had to be awake after an all-nighter, so did the kid. Hell, he didn’t know, maybe waking him up would help him sleep at night.

Peter didn’t wake, though. It was as if Tony hadn’t said anything at all.

“Wakey, wakey, sleeping beauty,” said Tony, making his voice louder, and that time, nudging on his shoulder.

Peter groaned and pulled the blanket over his head.

“Come on, kid, time to get up.”

“Go away,” mumbled Peter, rolling over on his stomach, and burying his face into the couch cushion.

Tony withdrew his hand and went away. He returned seconds later with a red plastic water gun Clint’s own little terrors had left lying around the last time they visited. He sat on the coffee table, got comfortable, then pointed the gun at the back of Peter’s head and pulled the trigger, over and over again, until Peter gave another muffled groan and sat up.

Peter glared at him. Tony shot water onto his face.

“Hey,” said Peter, wiping his face clean. “Stop doing that!”

“Oh, you’re awake,” said Tony. “Good.”

“Why do you even have that? What, are you four?”

“According to my fiancée.”

Peter made a noise of disgust, and while he didn’t go back to lying down, he did cover himself completely with the throw blanket, using it as some sort of shield against Tony and his water pistol. He looked around the suite, taking in his surroundings, before looking at Tony.

“This isn’t Steve’s suite.”

“Nope,” said Tony. “Much better taste, right? Steve’s a bit dated, stuck in the past and all that.”

Peter blinked at him, stared blankly, and waited for him to keep going.

“You’re gonna be staying with me for a couple of days.”

“Steve’s tired of me?”

“Uh, no. He’s going on a mission.”

“Is it about Hydra?” asked Peter. “Are you arresting my dad?”

“Sorry, it’s classified,” said Tony, deciding to move on before Peter had a chance to ask any more questions. “What’s not classified are my rules. One, if you mess with my food, I’m replacing your gross protein powder with asbestos.”

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“Try me.” Tony sprayed Peter in the face with the water gun twice, causing the boy to lunge forward and attempt to grab the gun. He fell back into the couch cushions with a single, gentle, push from Tony. “Two, my water gun, not yours.”

Peter rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. Tony wanted to give him a cookie for his normal teenager behavior. That was, if Peter was actually normal and would actually eat food that wasn’t liquid and made out of powder.

“And three,” said Tony. He extended his arm out and pointed the gun at the plant sunbathing in the window. “You’re responsible for keeping the plant alive.”

“You almost kill your plant and it’s my job to keep it alive?”

“Yep. You clearly care about it more than I do, I think you’d do a better job taking care of it.”

“I care?”

“Yeah.”

Peter’s face twitched several times and descended into what Tony assumed his own face looked like when he was trying to work out a tricky equation in the lab with Bruce. Only a couple of hours with the kid, and he’d already broken him. He had no idea what he said wrong, or how to fix it, and just started his spiral into regret about waking him up via water gun when Peter snapped out of it.

“I - I can handle that,” said Peter. His voice was quieter, with less of an edge. “Have you given it any water yet?”

“Nope.”

“I’ll start there.”

Tony sat on the coffee table while Peter got up and walked into the kitchen, where he searched for a cup and once he found one, filled it with water. Sun light was in Peter’s hair as he kneeled down by the dying plant, carefully pouring water into the dirt it was rooted in, and Tony caught glimpse of the real Peter Parker.

He wasn’t an angry ghost, or a frightened, flinching child, but quiet, gentle strength, the kind that helped rabbits and took care of plants. In a lot of ways, Peter, the real Peter, was better than Tony, better than most the Avengers, and Tony wondered how long it’d take to for all of Peter’s pretending to wash away, for him realize what it was that separated him from his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! 
> 
> the next chapter will probably take a little longer cause it's kind of a long one, at least the way I have it outlined now, it's like it's own mini sickfic lol, plus I have a christmas fic coming up!!
> 
> anyways, I hope you enjoyed!!


	3. poisoned cheeseburgers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy sunday!! hope you all aren't sick like I am at the moment and are enjoying the holiday!! 
> 
> this chapter isn't as long I thought it'd be, but it's still a mini sickfic!!

“What do you think, Spike?” asked Peter. “Will he go for it?”

The plant on Peter’s nightstand didn’t reply. Its narrow, green leaves did wave around with the heat being pumped out through the bedroom vents, but that hadn’t exactly answered his question. It only made him frown, made him worry all that hot air wasn’t good for Spike.

Carefully, he gripped the edges of the nightstand and moved it, so it still sat in the sun, but away from the vents, then went back to what he’d been doing before breaking to have a conversation with a plant, pacing.

He walked back and forth, back and forth, working out a script in his head. He needed to get the words just right. He needed to be convincing, and Peter knew from just his brief time with him, Tony Stark wasn’t convinced easily.

“Pete!”

Peter jumped, froze in place, and focused his ear. He heard the sizzle of the grill, heard the sound of grease popping.

“Lunch is ready!”

Tony didn’t give up easily, either. He’d only been living with him a day, and there’d already been five attempts to get him to abandon his protein shakes and eat badly. He closed his eyes, took a breath to prepare himself, both for denying lunch and to make his request, before leaving Spike and the bedroom behind.

Tony stood in the kitchen, behind a counter-top grill. He held a spatula, and he was using it to take two burgers off the grill and slide them onto plates.

“Ready to eat?”

Peter dropped his shoulders and slid on one of the stools lining the island in the kitchen. It was sort of getting exhausted, refusing to have meals with him over and over again. The truth was, the food, the real food, smelled sort of good.

“Cheeseburgers are almost ready.”

“No thanks,” said Peter. “I’m good with my shake.”

“Suit yourself, kid,” said Tony. “But you’re missing out.”

Peter shifted around on the stool and watched Tony quietly assemble his burger. That was the strange thing about Tony. He always asked, always made extra food, but he was too weak to push, too feeble to enforce his own will. It bothered Peter, in a way, that it was easier to exist around the man that kidnapped him than it was his own father, who’d never allow Peter even the chance to say no.

  
Richard didn’t ask questions. He shouted out orders, that were obeyed and obeyed immediately, unless you wanted a short-lasting, but painful, black-eye or something heavy thrown at you.

Tony smashed the top bun down on the burger and took a bite, and Peter considered abandoning the dietary rules his dad had set for him. He remembered a time when it was different, when he ate regular food his mom cooked for him, but then she was gone and he got bit by a spider and Richard declared Peter’s body a machine, something that ran only the super-nutrients packed into the powder he manufactured.

He might as well, a voice in Peter’s head told him. The stuff the Avengers were supplying him with to make protein shakes wasn’t the same, anyway, and probably wasn’t as good as the stuff his dad made. But in the end, as tempting as it was, Peter knew he couldn’t.

Someday his dad would send rescue, probably in the form of a few dozen Hydra agents. Someday he’d be back living with the same rules, so he might as well stick to them now.

“Something on your mind?” asked Tony, abandoning his burger, only to dump some chips on his plate.

“Um,” said Peter, his mouth suddenly dry, the speech he’d been preparing earlier suddenly missing from his mind. “I just – I need to use the internet.”

“Why?”

“I need to do some research,” Peter answered. “And figure out what species Spike is.”

“Who the hell is Spike?”

“The plant.”

“Spike the plant,” said Tony, bobbing his head up and down. “I like it, but you already know the problem with you using the computers.” Peter did know. He’d heard it before from him and Steve both, about a thousand times. “We can’t have you sending messages to anyone.”

“Aren’t you a genius?”

“Why do you keep bringing that into question?”

“You could just block me from sending message. Problem solved.”

“I could,” said Tony, as though it’d been on his mind from the beginning. “I’ll tell you what, kid.” He abandoned his plate of food and turned back towards the grill, one the lone plate with the lone burger sat. He grabbed it, turned back around, and placed it in front of Peter. “Just eat half, and I’ll build you something you can use for your plant research.”

Peter looked down at the burger, the smells hitting him again. He wondered if Spike was worth betraying his dad’s rules. He wondered if his dad would ever even be able to find out, once they were back together, that he’d broken them. If he ever got back to Richard, who’d tell him? Peter sure as hell wouldn’t.

“Fine, deal,” said Peter, keeping his voice stiff, careful not to let on this was a rule he was happy to break.

For Spike, of course, and for his sanity, he assembled a cheeseburger, mimicking all the same steps Tony had taken until it was finished. Peter opened his mouth, and took a bite, ignoring the way Tony had stopped eating to stare at him.

He chewed slowly, mystified by the flavors exploding in his mouth. They weren’t chalky or metallically. They were savory, and they forced Peter to take his next bite quicker, forced him to eat more than half of the cheeseburger.

*

Peter had chills, then he was sweaty. He wanted his blanket, then he didn’t, and so it went, throughout the late hours of the night.

He lay perfectly still on the bed in Tony Stark’s guest room, with his face planted into the pillow and one eyeball staring across the dark room at Spike, as if looking at him might bring some sort of comfort, as if Spike had the ability to put the fire out in his belly.

He didn’t, though, of course he didn’t. Spike was just a plant, useless against the fiery knots tightening in his stomach, knots that made Peter hold his breath and wish away. He wasn’t going to get sick. He wasn’t. He was determined to beat whatever poison that wormed its way into his system via cheeseburgers, by sheer force of will.

That was sort of the problem, Peter realized, throwing off the blankets and swinging his feet onto the ground. As Richard was always reminding him, his will wasn’t strong enough to beat anything. He made to the bathroom in time to shove his head in the toilet and puke, and by the time he was raising his head out and flushing the toilet, Tony stood in the doorway of the bathroom, his face ceased in a way Peter hadn’t seen before.

An expression that was mysterious and unknown, or at least, long forgotten. It cut him deep, and he looked away.

Tony, on the other hand, began to freak out.

He guided him into the suite’s living room, pushed him down on the couch and pressed a cold washcloth on his forehead with an order not to touch it. He started pacing around, and Peter wished he would cut it out, it was making him dizzy, but Tony didn’t stop. If anything, he got faster, pulling a phone from his pocket and pressing it against his ear as he walked back and forth.

  
“What do I do if a kid gets sick?”

“Tony,” said the tired voice on the other end. Peter was eavesdropping, he didn’t care. It took his mind off how miserable he was. “Is this your way of telling me that you changed your mind and you don’t actually want a baby?”

“This isn’t hypothetical, Pep,” said Tony. “I have a kid and he’s puking his guts out.”

“You have a what?”

“I’m babysitting – “

“-not a baby,” Peter mumbled out.

“He’s just thrown up and now he’s just lying on my couch, spitting out nonsense and looking miserable.”

Peter stopped listening in to their conversation and went back to his misery, remembering the last time he felt this way, right after the incident with the spider. He’d gotten a fever, just like he was sure he had now, and he’d thrown up, a lot. He was left in his room, sweating it out on his twin bed, while Richard checked up on him from time to time to ask him clinical questions and scribble on his clipboard, stoic and unmoved.

Not at all like Tony Stark, who was currently having a meltdown in his own home, when he wasn’t even the who with the fever. He must’ve been broken in a way Richard wasn’t, Peter decided, he must’ve been a much weaker man.

“Pep said I need to get your temperature,” said Tony, as he slid his phone back in his pocket. “But I don’t have a thermometer, so we’re just gonna skip that step and I’m gonna take you straight to the medcenter.”

Peter forced himself to sit up without a word, deciding the only way to get Tony to stop talking and walking so fast was to comply.

*

“I’ll never eat another cheeseburger again,” Peter moaned.

He was sandwiched between a mountain of blankets and the medical bed, curled into a ball, and clutching his arms around his belly, while he and Tony waited for the doctor to come back and tell them what disease was currently killing him. It was mostly formality. Peter was pretty sure what caused the fire in his stomach.

“You put asbestos in my food,” added Peter, since his original comment hadn’t earned a response. Tony had gone strangely calm, strangely quiet, and Peter missed the noise. It helped distract him from his pain.

  
“I was joking,” said Tony, evenly. He straightened out in his chair, leveling his gaze at Peter. “I’d like to think you know me better than that.”

“Why would I? We’re practically strangers.”

“Yeah,” said Tony. “You’re right, so let’s get to know each other. I’ll start. I’m Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, ex-playboy. I like building things and Black Sabbath. Now it’s your turn. Go.”

“Peter Parker,” he grunted out. “The kid you kidnapped and poisoned.”

“You forgot to mention what you like.”

Peter opened his mouth, then shut it. His brain sputtered out, searching for an answer to what should be a simple question, but coming up empty each time.

“I don’t like anything,” said Peter, and that felt like the truth. If he couldn’t come up with an answer, it must be.

“Oh, come on, of course you do,” said Tony. “What do you miss from home?”

His mother, easily. He missed her, but she wasn’t around anymore, wasn’t home, so maybe she didn’t count.

“Can we stop talking now? It makes everything hurt worse.”

“Okay, kid,” said Tony, always quick to back off. There was a softness to his voice that annoyed him. It sounded a lot like pity. “Whatever you say.”

Peter hugged himself a little tighter, shivering even under all the blankets Tony had piled on top on him. He repeated a mantra in his head, over and over again, promising to appreciate feeling normal so much more if he could just get back to feeling that way. He repeated it like a prayer, as if some god somewhere was listening, and would decide to make it all go away.

The fever, the stomach pains, the feeling of emptiness that had crept up inside him and settled after Tony had asked his question.

“Well, I have good news,” said Dr. Banner, stepping back inside the room. “It wasn’t the cheeseburger. Just a stomach bug. Completely normal, and with your healing rate, you’ll probably be feeling better tomorrow, even.”

Peter didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse. Tomorrow was soon, but also incredibly far away.

“So, just to be clear, the food was just a coincidence?” asked Tony, standing up for the chair. “There wasn’t asbestos in his system?”

Peter shot Tony an annoyed look, and Dr. Banner scratched his head.

“Uh, no, no asbestos,” he told him. “But maybe next time start him out with something a little less greasy? While he’s transitioning back to solid food it’s probably better to keep it simple.”

Dr. Banner gave him a speech about resting and staying hydrated, before turning to Tony to tell him that he was going to bed and unless he wanted to speak to the other guy, he wouldn’t wake him up in the middle of the night. Peter didn’t know exactly what that meant, but it was enough for Tony to give a small nod and promise it wouldn’t happen again.

*

After the tortuous walk back up to the Stark suite, Peter was completely zapped of his energy. He didn’t even have enough energy to make it back to the guestroom, so instead, he collapsed on the couch, burrowing down into the cushions and savoring the way the cool fabric felt against his burning, hot skin.

Not long after Tony was coming at him, in multiple trips, with pillows, blankets, a water bottle, a packet of crackers, and the last item, a tall glass filled with ice and something clear and fizzy. A straw hung out from the top.

“What’s that?” asked Peter, as Tony put it down on a T.V. tray, next to the other items.

“It’s 7up,” said Tony. “Jarvis used to give it to me when I was sick. Helps settle the stomach.”

Peter stared it, unsure anything was possible of making him feel better.

“Try it, you might find out you like.”

He was skeptical, but now curious enough to take a slow, hesitant sip. Cold, refreshing, different from the cheeseburger, but miles away from the chalky protein shakes he was beginning to despite. He took another sip through the straw while Tony turned on the TV and settled down on the armchair.

“Alright kid, what will it be? What do you wanna watch?”

Peter didn’t want to admit watching TV and movies was another thing he wasn’t quite familiar with. It was a luxury that left the manor when his mother died, just like so many other things.

“You pick.”

  
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” said Tony.

Tony ended up picking a really old movie called the Breakfast Club, and it turned out to be pretty interesting. There were kids close to his age. They went to school, something so normal for the kids on the screen they had the luxury to complain about it, whining when they got in trouble and had to be there an extra day.

“I think I would’ve liked school,” said Peter, thinking back to Tony’s question, as the movie continued to play. “If I’d ever gotten the chance to go.”

“Yeah, you do sort of seem like a nerd.”

Peter turned his head to look at Tony and found him grinning back, no venom behind his words. A joke, he guessed, and maybe a true one. Maybe he would’ve been a nerd. Maybe that was an identity he could cling too, so he could stop feeling so empty inside.

“You might still get the chance,” said Tony. “You’re barely old enough for high school. There’s still time.”

Peter fell silent and didn’t talk the rest of the movie. When the Breakfast Club ended, Tony turned on a different movie, another one about a kid Peter’s age.

He didn’t get to watch the entire movie, because Dr. Banner had been right. His stomach pains were subsiding fast, and without the edge of pain keeping him awake, his eyelids were heavy and hard to keep open.

He drifted off, listening to Ferris Bueller lie his way out of going to school, listening to the calming, annoying comforting sound of Tony’s occasional chuckle. He faded in and out of dreams absent of any screaming, but instead filled with walking down hallways lined with lockers and having fantastic adventures in a giant city, surrounded by people who smiled and tall buildings that stretched miles into the sky.

*

The next morning, Peter woke up with a small smile on his face and with his stomach rumbling in hunger. Normal was back. He took a moment, as promised, and appreciated the marvelous feeling being normal, completely absent of the pain that made him want to puke his guts out.

He sat up, and looked around, losing his smile once he saw the armchair Tony had occupied empty. His stomach growled again, and he looked at the unopened pack of crackers on the TV tray.

They were just crackers, but they loaded with feelings.

It’d been nine days since he disappeared from the manor, nine days since he was spirited away in the middle of night. He was still here. Apparently, he wasn’t worth the risk of rescue. Not even worth it to his own father to send a few agents to come and get him and bring him to the place they would have moved to if the Avengers hadn’t gotten in the way.

Maybe it was childish to assume his father understood why he left and where he was, but at the same time, they weren’t strangers. He should know Peter better than that, than to think he’d just run away if he wasn’t being forced to, if he wasn’t in danger.

Nine days made it feel like he wasn’t even looking. Probably, he wasn’t. Richard didn’t have the time for that. His research and experiments were more important, Peter knew, but it didn’t mean it hurt any less.

Peter opened the pack of crackers. He had one, then another, then five. Even plain, dry crackers were better than chalk he was used to. He washed them down with watered down 7up, then jumped up to find the TV remote.

He wanted to finish watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but he wasn’t even past the ten-minute mark when the elevator dinged and Tony stepped off it, with a tablet in his hand.

“Hey, Pete,” said Tony, looking around and surveying the living room. “I take it you’re feeling better?”

Peter nodded his head.

“Good.” said Tony. He held up the tablet to show it off. “I brought something for you.”

Tony plopped down on the couch next to him and powered on the tablet. “This has everything you’ll need. Internet, Netflix, YouTube so you can get caught up on all the memes – “

“What’s a meme?”

“Uh, well,” said Tony. “You know what? This feels wrong. We need to get you someone your own age to explain this shit.”

Peter frowned and creased his face. He didn’t understand what age had to do with defining a word, but he figured it was just another one of the Tony’s oddities.

“Here, take it,” continued Tony. He pressed the tablet into Peter’s hands, and he accepted it. “I’m sure you’ll be able to research everything you need to know about Spike on that.”

“Thanks, Tony.”

“Not a problem, kid. Just a warning for you, though, you try sending any message out on it, if you try hacking it, you’ll brick it and I’ll get an alert, got it?”  
Peter nodded. He didn’t have anyone to send any messages, too, anyway. Richard certainly didn’t care.

“Good, now,” said Tony, his eyes drifting down towards the crackers. “Should I make us a proper breakfast?”

Peter didn’t hesitant before nodding again, and Tony didn’t hesitant zooming off to the kitchen, no doubt ready to capitalize on his willingness to eat.

While Tony prepared their breakfast, Peter wandered off to the guestroom to check on Spike. He was standing a little taller that morning, looking a bit greener and fresher and healthy. Peter supposed he did like something after all. He liked Spike.

The plant was at the top of his list, right above 7up when his stomach ached and the Breakfast Club and who knew what else. He’d have a lot of time to figure it out, because if there was one thing Peter was sure about, it was that rescue wasn’t coming for him anytime soon, and the worse part, he wasn’t even sure if he cared that it wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!
> 
> comments and/or kudos let me know what you think 
> 
> [or come shout at me on tumblr](https://hailing-stars.tumblr.com)


	4. finders keepers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for your patience and please enjoy!!

It was risky. Tony knew that, but he pushed forward, anyway. Temporarily plant-napping Spike was for Peter’s own good.

Tony paused outside his open door, stopping only long enough to confirm that he could hear the shower running in the attached bathroom. With deliberately light steps, he wandered into Peter’s bedroom and looked around, frowning slightly.

It was too clean, unnatural for a teenage, and Tony hoped that someday Peter might learn to make messes every once in a while.

“Aha,” said Tony, finally spotting Spike sitting by the window. He grabbed him off the nightstand and left the room, quickening his steps when he heard the shower shut off.

Tony put Spike on the kitchen counter just in time for Pepper to step off the elevator and into the suite. She stopped, looked at the plant, then turned towards Tony, her face full of suspicion.

“It’s still alive.”

“Yep,” said Tony. He turned his back on her and grabbed a cup from the shelf, then filled it with water from the sink facet. “Looks like I’m not as useless as you say.” 

“I never said you were useless.”

Tony turned back around, and stood over Spike, just about ready to pour the water into his pot when he was stopped by a panicked scream.

“WAIT STOP!”

Tony froze, his hand hovering in midair, and his eyes on a distressed Peter Parker. He marched out from the hallway, his hair still dripping water, and joined them both in the kitchen. Peter snatched the cup from Tony’s hand. Drops of water splashed up and soaked his shirt.

“I already watered Spike today,” Peter told him.

“So what?” asked Tony. He looked down mournfully at the dark spot on his shirt. “He was looking extra thirsty.”

“He’s a plant, Tony. He doesn’t get extra thirsty,” said Peter. “He _will_ get root-rot if you over water him.”

Peter dropped the cup of water into the sink, and Tony caught Pepper tilting her head at him, raising an eyebrow at him. There was a self-assured smirk on her lips. She had been right, and it drove Tony crazy, in more ways than one.

“Pep,” said Tony. He reached out his hand and beckoned at Peter and ignored it when the boy flinched in response, not wanting to bring attention to it and embarrass him. “This is Peter, the resident plant expert and babysitter.”

“Nice to meet you Peter,” said Pepper. She stretched out her hand. Peter only stared at it. “Glad to know someone is looking after… Spike, right?”

“Yeah.” 

Pepper kept her hand outstretched in the space between them, and Peter continued to stare at it, as if he didn’t know quite what to do. Eventually, and hesitantly, he reached out and shook her hand, but withdrew quickly as it he’d just touched something extremely hot. He stuffed both hands in his pockets and shifted around on his feet.

“Did you know that Spider plants are one of the easiest plants to take care of?” asked Peter, quickly. He looked at the floor, then leveled a look at Tony. “And he almost let him die.”

“Oh really?”

“Peter,” said Tony, before this conversation could go any further. “Why don’t you go get dressed?”

“I’m already dressed.”

“In warmer clothes,” Tony elaborated. “We’re going out.”

“We are?”

“Yep, now chop chop.” 

Peter frowned and ceased his face up, as if he were confused, but, eventually, picked Spike up off the kitchen counter and left the kitchen.

Tony hoped he’d opt for the newer clothes he had couriered to the Compound the day before. Peter had seemed disinterested in them, choosing instead to re-wear one of the few outfits he’d brought with him in the bookbag.

“What were you saying? About not being useless?” asked Pepper.

“Technically I’m babysitting the plant-sitter,” Tony told her. “So it’s still my doing that Spike is alive and well.”

She gave him a look, telling him she better knew, but moved on anyway. “What’s with the kid? Is he okay?”

Tony mouthed that he’d tell her about it later. Peter’s super hearing knew no boundaries, no conversation that it shouldn’t infringe on, and he didn’t want Peter overhearing his take on his sad life’s story so far. That Tony didn’t really think he was okay. The kid couldn’t take it. At least not yet.

He left Pepper in the kitchen with a promise to be right back and found Peter in his bedroom. He was sat on his bed, pulling on the brand-new shoes. He was wearing the new jeans and a new sweater, too. Relief and pride spread through Tony. No more same three shirts, no more mud-covered tennis shoes.

“Ready?”

Peter stood up from the bed and gave him a funny look. “You’re not worried I’ll run off?”

“Nope,” said Tony. He wasn’t. Not really, and he had a back-up just in case. “Where’s your coat?”

Peter retrieved his coat from the closet, ripped the tags off, and slid it over his arms, without a complaint.

“Ready,” he said, once he had both arms through.

“You’ll need your tablet,” Tony told him. “And your headphones.”

His shoulders dropped at the mention of the headphones. They were a specialty, something Tony designed and made just for Peter, to prevent his sensitive hearing to hear things Tony didn’t want him to hear. Peter hated them.

“Don’t give me that look,” said Tony. “You’re going to want them. It’s a long drive and Pepper and I are boring. You can watch movies.” He took the bright blue headphones off the desk and put them around Peter’s neck. “Besides, the city’s really loud. It might be overwhelming for your senses at first.”

Tony watched the fight play out over Peter’s face. The way his eyes lit up at the word city, and the way he tried to keep his expression from betraying his excitement.

“Okay, fine,” said Peter, picking up the tablet from the nightstand by his bed, and following Tony out of the room.

*

The Audi sped down a New York highway, as Peter watched yet another movie about high school students in the backseat and Tony tried to answer question Pepper had asked back in the suite.

He started at the beginning, at learning Hydra was about to transport an unknown weapon to a base they hoped to raid and the plan to prevent that from happening. He told her that weapon was in the backseat of their car, holding back smiles and laughs at whatever he was watching, and more than just a regular teenager.

Of course, that was the sad part. Richard had turned his son into a weapon and would have gave him away to be brainwashed like Bucky had the Avengers not stolen him from his home.

He told Pepper what Peter had told him. That he thought they were moving to the Hydra base, away from that manor he didn’t seem to fond of, but Tony knew that probably wasn’t the case. That Richard was saying whatever it was he could to get Peter out the door peacefully, so he can hand him over to people that would turn him into a monster.

“That’s… horrible,” said Pepper.

“Yeah,” said Tony. His hands were on the wheel, his eyes were on the road straight ahead. “They’re shutting it down, though. The base and Richard’s secret lab out in the forest. They’ll be dead or in prison by tomorrow morning, I’d bet.”

There was an unspoken question lingering in the air. It was the same question that had been playing through Tony’s mind in the workshop lately, while he worked on Peter’s tablet and his headphones. He already knew his answer. He was just waiting for Pepper to agree, but the car stayed silent, besides the buzz of unrecognizable audio coming from Pete’s headphones.

Tony was forced to be the one who brought it up.

“The plant’s still alive, Pep, just one more week to go.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Tony’s eyes fluttered back to the boy in the backseat. Peter didn’t notice him looking. He was too involved with the movie, and Tony’s eyes were back on the road in seconds.

“He doesn’t have anywhere to go,” he said. “No family, after they put Richard away, no anything.”

“So you want to adopt a teenager,” she said, getting right to the point. Tony supposed she was used to cutting through all the bullshit. 

Tony frowned. “I wouldn’t say adopt.”

“Why not? That’s exactly what it’d be,” she said. “Tony, it’s… an awful situation, but I think you’re jumping the gun on this. He doesn’t even like you.”

“He’ll warm up to me,” said Tony. “That’s just his way.”

Pepper was quiet for the following several minutes, then finally said, “You have a week to keep that plant alive. I’ll think about it, you should think about it more, too.”

Tony wasn’t worried, not about Spike’s survival or Pepper coming around or for Peter to stop believing he was the bad guy.

Peter would take care of Spike, just like he’d eventually win Pepper over. That boy had a charm about him, and Tony suspected by the end of their day together in the city, Pepper would be done with her thinking.

*

As it turned out, Peter’s senses were well adjusted to the sounds and the rhythms of New York City.

Tony and Pepper, after parking the car, had been turned around in their seats, watching intently as he cringed with expectation of the noise to come and slowly peeled the headphones from his ears. Once they were all the way off, he shrugged and dropped them around his neck.

“Not that loud,” said Peter, as if he were unimpressed. The way he scrambled out of the car to get a better look at his surroundings told another story.

Their first activity in New York was a walk through Central Park.

Tony saw an opportunity when he saw a vendor selling hot chocolate and took it. Peter took a hesitate sip from the foam cup, declared it was just fine, then proceeded to drink the rest by the time they were rounding a corner and coming into view of a half-frozen over pond.

The air was frigid, a bitter cold that settled deep in Tony’s bones, but he didn’t mind it, barely paid attention to it. It hard to pay mind to anything that wasn’t Peter and the relaxed way he embraced the city, the way he held his body looser and constantly looked around, wanting to see anything and everything.

It was as if he were supposed be in the city all along, but Richard had robbed him of it. Tony clenched his fist. If Richard Parker were a lucky man, he’d been safely locked away in the raft by the time Cap’s mission was over.

Tony didn’t know what he’d do if he were ever faced with the man who damaged a boy like Peter so badly.

Their second destination was a small shop in one of the city’s suburbs. Peter’s eyes went wide when they drove up the dirt and gravel parking lot, when he saw the all the green inside the greenhouse.

“I thought with all that research you’ve been doing,” said Tony. “You might have thought of a few things that Spike needs.”

Peter released his seat belt from the buckle and had his hand on the door when Tony stopped him once more.

“Just one condition.”

Peter exhaled, his shoulders drooping as he said, “Of course there’s a condition.”

He might have been a normal teenager just then, down to the eyeroll and his bursting with energy to get out of the car and into the store. He was properly impatient and actually excited about something and Tony felt all gooey on the inside, warm with pride.

“You gotta try one new food at lunch,” Tony informed him.

“I already tried something new today.”

“Hot chocolate doesn’t count as food, genius.”

“Fine,” said Peter. “No cheeseburgers.”

He opened the car door and slid out, while Pepper looked at Tony with alarm and mouthed her horror that he’d given a boy who previously existed on protein shakes something like a cheeseburger. As Tony left the car, he realized there were probably parts about Peter’s past he could’ve left out.

“Don’t worry, Pete,” said Pepper. She opened the door to the greenhouse, and a bell chimed as they walked inside. “I’m picking the restaurant and I have much better taste than Tony.”

She smiled at him and Peter returned, leaving Tony trailing behind both of them and wondering when they decided to gang up on him. It supposed he couldn’t be too upset. Just meant his plan was working, and Pepper was coming around to the idea.

Tony hung back and watched as Peter looked around, as he found an employee and started a conversation. He liked to talk, especially about plants. He talked about other things, too, and as the time had passed, the more he was open to discussions, the more he lost the glare from his eyes and the scowl on his face.

Peter was naturally social, naturally interested in people, and it was a damn shame he grew up the way he did. Isolated, so far from anyone or anything normal, like a plant trying to grow and thrive without any sunlight.

Tony wanted to change that, and he made a silent promise to himself that he would.

*

Pepper didn’t choose a restaurant.

She chose a little café, not far from the greenhouse store, and with just about as much traffic, which was to say, nearly none at all. They sat at a booth with their own window. Peter sat on the inside, closest to the glass, Tony sat on the outside, and Pepper sat across from them, in the middle of the opposite booth.

“Alright, kid,” said Tony, sliding a menu at him. “Get whatever you want.”

Peter picked up his menu and frowned at it. His face was scrunched as his eyes trailed over all the options, leaving Tony to assume it was his first time attempting to order food. Tony wondered how many other first times he would have, that he was supposed to have had already.

Tony felt his fist tightening again, thinking about Richard, but he loosened it as he breathed out, as Pepper reached across the table and pointed something out to Peter on the menu.

“I bet you’d like that,” Pepper told him, dispelling Peter’s confusion and Tony’s building rage all in one go.

When the waitress came around and took their order, Peter went with Pepper’s suggestion, and quietly sipped on his 7up while the three of them talked. They talked about Spike, about all the things Peter had made Tony buy at the plant shop, about all the fires Pepper had put out at Stark Industries the day before.

They might have been a normal family, having lunch on a bright, winter day, to the people passing by on the streets, looking through the windows. Tony pretended their narrow perspective was the right one. He hoped Pepper was doing the same. From her smile, it wasn’t hard to imagine that she was.

*

They left Pepper in the city, dropping her off at the penthouse, before hopping on the highway and booking it back to the compound.

“You drive a lot faster without Ms. Potts in the car,” said Peter. He had taken her place in the front seat.

“Don’t be a snitch about it,” said Tony.

He wanted to add _like you were about the plant_ but let it go, focusing instead on the defeated look that had briefly crossed Peter’s face when he learned they were dropping Pepper off and he wasn’t coming with them.

Another Tony, years ago or just one under different circumstances, might have been jealous that Peter liked Pepper right away and still regarded him with barely concealed distain.

This Tony wasn’t.

He was determined that he’d win him over, somehow. He was just worried about how badly it’d hurt Peter when he realized that the Avengers weren’t the bad guys and his life was mostly a lie. That everything in his world was upside down and backwards from the very beginning.

By the time they pulled into the Compound’s garage, Peter was almost asleep. His head was up against the window, and Tony had to give him a nudge with his hand to snap him out of his daze. Peter didn’t flinch.

Tony helped him carry the plant care items into the Compound, and when they saw Steve and the other Avengers milling around in the common area, Tony quickened his pace.

“Walk faster,” he whispered to Peter. “Maybe they won’t see us.”

An actual, real-life laugh escaped Peter’s mouth, and it made Steve cornering them both by the elevator worth it.

“Did you two… go somewhere?” asked Steve, looking at the bags in their hands.

Tony handed Peter the other bags, pushed him into the elevator when it opened and told him he’d be up in a minute. When he returned his stare to Captain America, he was frowning at him even deeper.

“Please tell me you didn’t take him out in public.”

“I would,” said Tony. “But you all seem to get really grumpy at me when I lie.”

“Tony, he’s dangerous.”

“In theory.”

They were actually all quite lucky Peter Parker was gentle, that he didn’t seem to know his own strength and rarely used the superpowers Richard inflicted upon him. Tony couldn’t figure out if he was unaware of how strong he actually was or just uninterested. He supposed it didn’t matter. Both worked in their favor.

“Relax, Cap. He wasn’t going anywhere. I put a tracker in his shoe,” said Tony. Steve let out a breath, but his jaw was still tight and his shoulders still tense. “I’m take it the mission didn’t go well.”

“It went fine,” said Steve, in a voice that suggested it definitely hadn’t been fine. “Most of it I guess. The Hydra base is gone, it’s being picked through by SHIELD right now, but we went back to the manor, Richard Parker is gone… along with all his research.”

The name Richard Parker rang around in Tony’s head, as annoying and frustrating as a morning alarm going off after hitting snooze too many times. Tony flexed his hand to prevent himself from making a fist.

“We’re thinking he probably got wise after Peter disappeared and went into hiding,” said Steve. He paused, then shifted on his feet. “We need to question Peter.”

“No.”

“He might know where he’s hiding.”

“I don’t care,” said Tony. “He’s not ready to answer questions. Start asking him where Richard is now, he won’t tell you and we’ll lose any trust we had. He’s not ready.”

Steve paused for a couple of beats, then slowly started to nod his head. “Yeah, we should wait, just, we can’t lose Parker. He’s – “

“-I know,” said Tony.

He didn’t need Steve to stand there and list off the many atrocities Richard Parker had committed. He was a serial killer, only worse. He was a serial killer who believed he was right, that he was contributing to the world with his experiments, when he was only robbing humanity of the many, many people who died at his hand.

“Okay, well, just send Peter back to my suite whenever,” Steve told him. “Thanks for watching him.”

It was a slap to the face, at the first, until Tony remembered that Peter’s care had originally been left to Steve. Tony was only babysitting, after all, but it had felt so right, so much like family, he’d forgotten the arrangement had been different at first.

“Uh, I don’t think I will.”

“What?”

“Finders keepers and all that,” said Tony. 

Steve rolled his eyes but looked a little relieved as smiled and shook his head. “Okay, that’s fair.”

Tony pushed down on the elevator call button, but before he could fully escape, Steve had one last thing to tell him.

“We can hold off asking questions for a little bit, Tony,” he told him. “But you can’t protect him from this forever.”

The doors slid shut. Tony decided to take Steve’s parting warning as a personal challenge. Maybe it wasn’t possible. Maybe he really couldn’t protect Peter forever, but he could sure as hell try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! 
> 
> ps I also extended this from 7 chapters to 9 because upon further reflection, it needs MORE!!


	5. spring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is BACK!!! this chapter was originally supposed to be longer, but I added a chapter to the fic to split this one in half cause it was gonna be way too long!! 
> 
> anyways hope you guys are staying safe!! and that you enjoy the chapter!!

Peter drummed his fingers against the dining room table and his eyes watched Tony’s fingers fly across the keyboard of his laptop, typing something and only stopping occasionally to squint at the screen or click the trackpad.

Peter sunk down, folded his arms across the table and rested his chin on his palm. He sighed, heavy and loud and on purpose, but Tony still didn’t look away from his computer.

“I’m bored,” groaned Peter.

“Go play with Spike.”

It was an automated response, as if Tony had been hanging around the machines he built for far too long and was turning into one himself. They’d converted him. Just like the novels Peter used to read, when he’d been bored at the manor, the robots were taking over.

“He’s a plant,” said Peter. “Once he’s taken care of, there isn’t much to do with him.”

“Play on your tablet,” said Tony, a little less robot in his voice. Peter didn’t care. He groaned again, and Tony offered another solution. “Go watch a movie.”

“I’ve seen them all.”

“Impossible.”

Peter let out another loud, puff of air and went quiet. He was tired of movies and his tablet. He was tired of being locked in Tony’s suite, tired of the Avenger’s Compound altogether, restless for the day Pepper would come back and they could all go back to Central Park and pretend like they were any other family enjoying the sunlight.

It would believable. They looked like a family, and acted like a family, even Peter felt like a traitor thinking that way.

He _had_ a family already. It was small, just him and his father, but it was a family. One he doubted he would reunite with more each day nobody showed up to bring him home.

Sometimes he wondered if he wanted to go home. Sometimes he wondered if he already was, and the Avenger’s hadn’t been lying when they claimed they were rescuing him. Those thoughts got shaken away and banished to the back parts of his brain and locked behind a door. Though didn’t matter how hard he tried keeping them bound up, they always managed to slip loose.

Even still, he hoped he might get the chance to go back into the city with Tony and Pepper, just one last time, before someone showed up and took him back to the manor. _If_ someone showed up and took him back.

The elevator dinged and Peter shot up, straightened out in his chair and watched the doors expectantly. Tony didn’t flinch. Didn’t move at all. Didn’t even look up from his computer screen when Steve Rogers walked into the suite and cleared his throat to get his attention.

“Don’t mind him,” said Peter, sinking back down, his excitement drained. “The robots melted his brain.”

Tony’s eyes flickered at Peter a few seconds, then went back to his computer. “What do you want Cap, as you can see, we’re both extremely busy.”

Peter frowned and looked at the empty space on the table in front of him, at all the things they weren’t busy with.

“Doesn’t look that way to me.”

“Well you’re really old, Steve. You probably need some glasses. Some really thick ones with bifocals.”

“I thought jokes about my age weren’t funny anymore.”

“Since when? I didn’t sign off on that.”

Peter laughed, quiet and unassuming and, at least he hoped, unheard.

“Anyways,” said Steve. He directed his voice at Peter. “I thought Peter might want to go down to the gym. Though he’d have to miss out on all the excitement happening in here…”

“What? Really?” asked Peter. He brightened at the thought of doing something more than sitting around, something active. He missed his walks in the woods around the manor, even if they had been restricted by the giant, ugly fence.

“Yeah – I can teach you how to throw a punch,” said Steve. “A real one. Not whatever that was back at the manor that night.”

Peter frowned, then immediately shook it off. Being offended wasn’t worth the energy, and besides, Steve was sort of right. He didn’t know how to fight, how to use the powers he supposedly had, and he was excited by the idea he might learn how.

“Tony,” said Peter, knocking his arm with his elbow. “Can I go?”

Tony stopped typing. He looked up from his computer but ignored Peter and looked straight at Steve instead. “Not a good idea, Cap.”

“But why not?” asked Peter, with a whine in his voice, one he didn’t care for. “ _I’m bored.”_

“Yes, I’ve heard, all morning,” said Tony, though he was still looking at Steve.

They were in the middle of a stare off. No doubt, they were arguing about something with shifting glares instead of with words, letting Peter knew it was certainly about him. That it was some lie they were trying to keep hidden.

He didn’t mind it much. Adults were always trying to keep things hidden, and he suspected the Avengers had more even more secrets than most. Peter didn’t care about them. He just wanted to throw a few punches and burn off some energy. 

“We’re just going to the gym, Tony,” said Steve. Finally. After years of silent staring. “There won’t be a lot of time for talking.”

Tony torn his gaze away from Steve, then locked his eyes back on his computer screen and slammed the space key down. “Fine.”

He shot up from his chair as quickly as he could, causing the legs to scrap against the floor. Peter and Steve both were in the elevator too fast for Tony to change his mind, and in what felt like seconds, they were in the gym and Peter’s fist was colliding into a punching bag that Steve held firm.

With each punch, Peter’s thoughts became a little looser, a little clearer, but he didn’t notice it. Not too much, anyways. That was the way it worked. It was never too much, until it was too late.

*

Peter’s days after his first visit to the gym fell into an easy rhythm.

Not in a boring, predictable way, and definitely not in aimless way, like his life had once been. It was structured, and he knew what to expect, but also he _never_ knew what to expect. The Avenger’s Compound was a sort of organized chaos that Peter was learning to love and to count on.

Days started at breakfast with Tony, while they sparred with words instead of punches, and each morning was another exercise in how much they liked to argue. It was lighthearted, most of the time, if Peter didn’t count the time, he mentioned he thought he saw a gray hair in Tony’s moustache and the man spent the rest of the meal pretending he didn’t care.

Peter knew the truth. He went and searched his hairs in the mirror once Peter left with Steve for the gym.

As it turned out, Friday was a spy and a tattletale.

Punches weren’t thrown down in the gym either, at least not by anyone except Peter. Steve held a punching bag and showed him different hand-to-hand techniques. Once or twice the Black Widow showed him a few things, too, but neither of them ever hit him. Never even tried too.

Not even when he deserved it.

Peter wasn’t sure he was offended or confused or somewhere in the middle. He didn’t dwell it and tried to push that to the back of his mind with the other thoughts he didn’t want to think about.

Lunch in the common room was in exercise in chaos. A chance to catch up with Tony. To show him what he’d learned in the gym before the man shoved more food at him, which, Peter had to admit, wasn’t so bad.

He liked lunches in the common room, liked the chaos, liked the that eating regular food was so normal to him he didn’t mind there being a lot of people around. He liked the attention of the other Avenger’s, even if he’d never admit to it, although he didn’t particularly care for the way the Winter Soldier stared at him from across the room.

Never saying anything. Just staring.

He was staring at him the day they were eating sandwiches and chips, and an alarm sounded so loudly Peter had dropped his food and used his hands to cover his ears. The rest of the Avenger’s stood up, hurried out of the room, while Peter watched with a blank face, clueless as to what was happening.

Tony stopped at the door, paused, then shot a look at the Winter Soldier, the only other person in the room who stayed still. “You’re in charge of the kid.”

Then he disappeared, leaving Peter alone in a room with a man who barely spoke and who clearly didn’t like him

“What just happened?” asked Peter, after a few minutes passed, with nothing but nervous silence.

“There’s a mission,” he replied. He sounded more robotic than Tony.

“Oh,” said Peter. “Um, is it dangerous?”

Honestly, he didn’t know why he cared, why it would matter to him if his kidnappers got suddenly and randomly taken out by whatever it was they were called away to fight. He could go home.

The trouble was, he was beginning to forget home. The concept was losing on many, and more and more, caught himself referring to the Compound as home.

“Could be.”

Hesitantly and awkwardly, realizing his short conversation with Bucky was already over, Peter picked up his sandwich and kept eating. Just for something to do. Just to fill the silence. Once he was finished, he loaded his empty plate into the dishwasher, and then he gathered up all the abandoned plates, cleaned them off, and put them in the dishwasher, too.

After he wiped down the counters, after he’d run out of things to do, it was just him and the Winter Soldier again, and Peter didn’t know what to do, what to say.

He sat down on the stool across from Bucky Barnes and folded his hands together. His thumbs went to war. “Can we go back up to my suite?”

“No,” he said.

Peter sighed, making his annoyance known, then stared down at his hands, until his eyes trailed off to the side and landed on the TV in the living room portion of the common area.

“Can I go watch TV?”

He didn’t answer, so Peter slid off the stool and took it as a yes, wondering why he felt like he needed to ask permission in the first place. He threw himself on the sofa and flipped on the TV.

It was the longest couple hours of Peter’s life, felt like the world was standing still, until, finally, the Avengers started filing back into the room. They looked tired and beaten and not at all like the rowdy and loud group of people who left earlier at lunch. Tony stuck his head in the archway, and nodded at Peter, telling him to follow.

The elevator was silent as they rode it up to the suite. It was strange. Most of the time Peter was rolling his eyes and wishing Tony would shut up, but now he wasn’t talking, now that he was radiating tiredness and world-weariness and still dressed as Iron Man, it seemed _wrong_.

“Umm,” said Peter. “Are you okay?”

There was a gash on Tony’s chin. That seemed wrong, too, like if something could make Iron Man bleed there wasn’t any hope for the rest of them.

“Fine,” said Tony, as they stepped out of the elevator, and he cringed. Peter suspected he might’ve been going for a smile, only it got lost somewhere on the way. “Some missions… some missions are just better than others.”

“So you guys lost?” asked Peter, with a frown.

Tony’s smile made it back. Though it was pained and sort of twisted, it was clearly no longer a grimace. “Depends on how you define winning, I suppose. Monster’s dealt with and all that…” he trailed off, paused, then started again. “There was a guy, though. They rushed him off to emergency… he didn’t make it.” 

“Oh,” said Peter. Screaming rattled around in his head. Images of his dad’s lab flashed int front of him, but he shook them away. He didn’t care. “That’s good news, though, right? Just one?”

Tony gave him a funny look, filled with just more pain, more sadness, and something Peter couldn’t understand. He _wouldn’t_ understand. Didn’t want to open that door, in his head and thoughts. It was bolted and locked shut for a reason.

He sighed, shook his head, and squeezed Peter’s should. “I’m gonna go shower. Clean up. Then we’ll go to the workshop? Tinker around a bit?”

“Yeah,” said Peter, his voice quiet. “Sounds good.”

Tony let released him from his metal, Iron Man claw, then clanked down the hallway and disappeared into his bedroom, leaving Peter alone in the living room, feeling a bit confused and slightly odd.

*

Peter kicked the ball. Hard.

It flew across their makeshift soccer field and soared into the net behind Hawkeye, who was on his phone, and hadn’t noticed the ball coming towards him.

“Nice shot, Pete,” said Steve. Peter nodded, and grinned in response, trading a high-five with Steve, who given him the assist and could have probably taken the shot and scored himself if he hadn’t passed the ball.

“Lucky shot, more like,” said Nat. “Barton! Get off the phone!”

He flipped her off and muttered something about getting a video from back home. Something to do with kids, but Peter didn’t stick around to listen. He jogged back to center field, the wet grass and bits of mud squashed under his tennis shoes.

Winter had melted into Spring and bought with it more time outside and more ways for the Avengers to distract him from the idea of being their prisoner. Peter didn’t mind it, much, especially when it involved being outside. He only wished Tony would come out of the workshop and play with them.

He didn’t like team sports. At least that’s what he said. Peter suspected it had more to do with Cap banning him from wearing his Iron Man armor that time they played football.

Once their game was over, Peter headed back inside and into the elevator, leaving muddy footprints behind him. The doors opened and Tony stood behind a stove, stirring something in a pot.

“How was the game?”

“Good,” said Peter. “We won by three.”

“Great,” said Tony. “Wanna get cleaned up? Dinner’s almost ready.”

“Sure.”

Peter retreated to his room, and once he closed the door behind him, he took a deep breath. He took another, and then, one more. Breaths came easier, his muscles were worn out, but looser, at the same time.

Something was different. Better. Brighter.

Life was brighter.

Maybe it was just Spring that had him feeling that way. That things were blooming, and the weather was warming, and the sunlight was good for him the same way it was good for Spike.

Though every day, more and more, he suspected something different that brought about the peace in his chest, his easy breathing.

It was almost as if he’d been sick his entire life, with some kind of deep-rooted rot, and he was just now getting over it, just now feeling well and normal and, for the first time, appreciating what a lot of people thought of as normal, everyday life.

*

Peter’s hands were covered in dirt, and so was the floor beneath the window. He filled four pots with soil and arranged them next to Spike. With a small knife, he cut off the small cluster of white flowers shooting off from Spike and put them in their own pots, as gently and carefully as he could manage.

“What the hell is all this dirt on the floor?” asked Tony, causing Peter to roll his eyes, as he put the last spiderette in its own pot. “I _just_ vacuumed from when you stomped mud throughout this entire suite.”

“I wasn’t _stomping_ ,” said Peter, looking up from his plants. “And I’ll clean this up.”

“Uh huh,” said Tony. “Believe it when I see it.” He crouched down, stared over Peter’s shoulder, and rubbed his thumb on one of Spike’s pups. “What is all this mess anyway?”

“It isn’t a mess,” said Peter, slapping Tony’s hand away. “Leave those alone. They’re precious.”

Tony barked out a laugh. “Precious? Seriously?”

“They’re Spike’s babies,” said Peter.

Tony stared blankly back at him.

“Every year Spike grow these –“ said Peter, gesturing to the white flowers, now in their own pots. “They’re spiderettes. You cut them off and put them in their own small pots and eventually, they’ll grow as big as Spike.” He blinked. “Are you sure you’re a genius?”

“So he’s mass producing,” said Tony, ignoring Peter’s last question.

“ _Re_ producing.”

“So that’s why you wanted to buy all these extra pots?”

“Yep,” said Peter, thinking back to their trip into the city. Felt like ages ago, when really, it’d just been a couple of months. “When’s Pepper coming back? When can we go back to Central Park?”

“Someday, kid,” he answered. “Probably not soon.”

“Because Steve doesn’t want me going out?”

“Something like that. But Pepper is stopping by. For dinner.”

“I just can’t go anywhere,” said Peter, repeating the most important bit of what had just been said.

He looked away from Tony and back at his plants, trying not to dwell on the fact that his father had forgotten about him and that he’d probably be locked up at the Compound for the rest of his life.

As nice as it was, as much fun as some days were, he couldn’t help getting a bit restless. 

“Hey, about a movie night?”

“Told you a million times,” said Peter. “Seen them all.”

“It’s warm enough to do it outside. We could get a projector, some sleeping bags – “

“Like a campout?”

“Uh, sure,” said Tony. His voice was hesitant, as if that hadn’t been exactly what he meant, but he was willing to go along with it. “You finish delivering Spike’s babies and cleaning all this dirt up off the floor, and I’ll go rally the troops.”

“Okay,” said Peter, with a nod.

Tony moved to leave the room but paused in the doorway. “I know it might feel like it, but it won’t be like this forever.”

Peter nodded again, to let Tony know he heard him, then man disappeared from the doorway. He didn’t know how to feel about that, about a future that didn’t include his father and one where, at the same time, he wasn’t a prisoner.

He pushed the worry to the back of his head, like he’d been doing, and instead, looked forward to a night under the stars and the pretend freedom they brought, looked forward to watching the baby plants grow and wondered, half-heartedly, if he’d still be around when they fully matured.

Half-heartedly, he wished he would be. He locked that thought up, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for reading!! please stay safe and drink water!! I hope if you're stuck in your homes for a long time you get plenty of rest, read plenty of fics and get caught up on netflix!! <3


	6. flip flop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi I've been gone for awhile but I'm back now please enjoy

Peter stared at what was supposed to be his sleeping bag. It wasn’t a sleeping bag. For one, it stood several inches off the tarpy bottom of the tent, and for two, it looked way more comfortable than the sleeping bags Peter had seen in movies or on TV. Looked like a bed, or like a nest of fluffy pillows and even fluffier comforters.

He shouldn’t be surprised. He should have guessed.

The non-sleeping bags were just the latest addition into the long line of camping supplies Tony had glamourized.

That was just a thing about Tony. He never did anything half-way, or even the whole way. Everything was overblown, and Peter was beginning to love it.

He loved the tent, and the way that even though it was just tarp material like regular tents, on the inside it looked more like drapes you’d see hanging in a king’s bedroom. He loved that way Steve asked Tony to fix the stove in the Avenger’s common room he’d upgraded it with an AI that he let Peter name. Stovie was becoming a lot like a therapist in that when any Avenger needed a midnight snack, he was always there to have the kind of deep conversation one can only have when everyone else were sleeping.

Peter loved the absurdity, but he wasn’t ready to admit it out loud.

He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you know how to camp?”

“Positive,” said Tony. “Doing it any differently would be torture on our backs.”

“Your back,” said Peter. “Some of us are still young.”

Tony narrowed his eyes into a mock glare, only pretending at being offended. It was better than the pretend smiles, better the lies he’d gotten used to growing up at the manor, that were nothing more than smiles drenched with screams and blood and faulty justifications.

Peter shook the thought away, and Tony lifted the flappy door of their tent and motioned for him to go through. “Save the old man jokes for the Captain, huh?”

He laughed, he humored him, but he didn’t agree. They were both ancient as far as he was concerned. A hundred or even just fifty yeas didn’t make much of a difference. Not to him.

The compound’s yard just served as another example of Tony’s dramatic, over-the-top nature.

Tons of tents populated the grass. In the center of the all the tents, Steve and Bucky had built a bonfire, and were in the process of dragging logs to use as benches. Sam emptied a grocery bag filled with marshmallows, chocolate bars, graham crackers and roasting sticks.

Pillows and blankets were piled high, in a haphazard stack, near where Tony had set up a projector and a screen to view the movie on, and a popcorn-maker, another machine Tony had engineered, stood nearby the viewing area.

“Poppy,” said Peter, patting the red and gold machine with one hand, responding to Tony after he’d asked him to name the AI that lived inside.

“See,” said Tony, addressing the group of gathering Avengers. “He’s good at giving names.”

The pair received nothing but stares, but at least they were on the same side of the popcorn-maker.

“It’s a good thing you two have each other,” said Black Widow, slowly and subtly rocking her head back and forth as the others dispersed and started to walk away.

She didn’t offer up anything else, nothing at all that might clue Peter into what she meant by it. What having each other meant. He imagined it must be sort of like the movies. That they had each other’s backs. That he and Tony had become something sort of like family over the short time they knew each other.

“Ignore her, Pete,” said Tony. “She’s clearly just jealous. I bet she’s horrible at giving names.”

From across the yard and with her back turned, Nat threw up her middle finger and Tony almost toppled over in his dramatic attempt to cover Peter’s eyes with both his hands. Peter swatted them away, and Tony just barely managed to regain his balance, to straighten out and square his shoulders.

“I’m not five.”

“Pshhh. Five. Fifteen. Not much of a difference,” he told him. “Childhood must be protected.”

Too late for that, thought Peter, but like so many other thoughts, didn’t give it a voice.

He looked around the yard with an ache that somehow managed to be two things at the same time. It was familiar, yet unfamiliar. Comforting, but terrifying.

He watched the Avengers and remembered all the soccer games and movie nights and the single trip into the city, the one Peter couldn’t stop dreaming about, even when his eyes were wide open. Not even that memory, as much as he liked it, could sooth the ache, could stop it from throbbing. It couldn’t erase the harsh reality that was the truth. That they could have all the fun they wanted. They could continue to try and distract him, and Peter could continue letting them, but it wouldn’t bring back any lost time.

It couldn’t change his situation, couldn’t negate the truth of what life, of what _his_ life, was supposed to be. A sacrifice. One made for science and progress. That much had been clear to him the second his father put a spider on his arm and let it bite him.

Just like the bodies that were wheeled out of his father’s basement from time to time. Those sacrifices were necessary, and so was Peter’s. He had to believe that, had to believe his father did what he did for a reason and that it was a good one, no matter how badly Peter wanted to be normal and pretend the Avengers were his family. That his childhood had always been fun and games.

“Penny for your thoughts?” asked Tony. The question came with a shoulder-nudge over their dinner, fresh from the grill.

“You’re, like, a billionaire,” said Peter, shaking his head and returning to reality. “You could do way better than a penny.”

“How about five bucks?”

“Still too cheap.”

Tony made a noise of disagreement but didn’t push him. They finished their dinner in silence, after which Peter was called over to where Steve and Sam were throwing around a football. Another distraction, and Peter accepted it without complaint.

The night turned into a gentle one, with a gentle breeze, as the sun went down while they passed around the ball. When it was finally completely dark, and the football was lost thanks to an erratic throw by Clint, they gathered around the fire to burnt marshmallows and squash them down between grahams and chocolate.

Eventually they settled down on the blankets under the stars, and the movie played from the projector and out on the white screen.

Peter didn’t pay much attention.

His thoughts were still too noisy. The screaming was too loud, and his mind was in a never-ending battle, warring over what made a sacrifice if not someone who was willing. All his books said so, the narratives that were handed down from mother and hidden away in the attic after she was gone.

“Are you… good, Pete?” asked Tony. His voice was a low whisper, barely audible above the wind blowing through the trees and the movie sounds coming through on the speakers.

Peter realized it was intentional. Tony’s words were only meant for him.

“You know, you can tell me,” said Tony. “If something’s bugging you, I want to hear about it.”

Peter stared straight ahead at the movie, and pretended he cared about what was happening on the screen. Something about it bothered him, grated at his nerves. Of course something was bothering him.

He was _kidnapped_ , and even if he was enjoying himself, even if he saw life here could be better than back at the manor, he still missed his dad. Sometimes, just sometimes, he resented the Avenger’s, for being better than his father, and having the nerves to know that and to constantly practice their moral superiority.

“I’m good.” He finally whispered back, reaching for the popcorn bowl and realizing he wouldn’t shake Tony’s attention without a response.

Eventually his stare left him, and Peter was able to get back to his warring thoughts, this inner debate that seemed to never end. Was he a soldier or a son?

*

“Hey, ‘ony?” asked Peter. His face was smashed in the pillows, and he had to readjust to look over at Tony, who was sitting on his own fancy sleeping bag, undoing the clasps of his watch.

He was barely awake, and although his mind knew he shouldn’t be asking the kind of question he was about to ask, he was unable to stop himself. He was sleepy and comfortable and reckless, but worst of all, he was ready to stop his inner debate. After warring with himself all night, he was too tired to keep going, and ready to accept what was easiest. 

It only he knew what that would mean, what the future would look like if he never went home again, if he was already home.

“Yeah?” Tony took the watch off his wrist and set it down on the tent’s floor.

“Earlier when you said things wouldn’t always be this way,” started Peter. “Um, I just, I was wondering what you meant… you know, how things will be… when there’re not this way?”

“I don’t know really,” said Tony. “Just… better.”

“Oh.”

“More time in the city,” said Tony. “Central Park. School.”

“Okay,” said Peter. It hadn’t exactly answered his question, but all those sounded like very good things, good enough to let his eyes flutter shut and his head sunk down into the pillow.

*

Peter was pulled from his dreams by whispers so quiet they shouldn’t have woken him up.

He lifted his head from the pillow, with a groan, ready to tell Tony to shut up when he saw Tony wasn’t there. His bed was empty. He sat up. Blinked. Rubbed his eyes and gave a lazy yawn.

The whispers kept whispering, and as Peter grew more and more aware, he realized they weren’t as close as they thought they were. That if his hearing hadn’t been amped up after the spider bite, he wouldn’t have been able to hear anything at all.

Though Peter hadn’t managed to catch any of the words, he could tell the whispers belonged to Tony and Steve and he could tell they were talking about him. Arguing, more like. Their tones were clipped and tensed and made Peter imagine Tony tugging at his hair in frustration.

He rolled off his bed and left the tent, instantly regretting not thinking to pull shoes over his socks. Water from the wet grass soaked through to his feet, but he kept walking towards the whispers, stopping only once he got close enough to hear what was being discussed.

“We’ve waited long enough, Tony.”

“You’ll have to wait some more. He’s not ready yet, and since you’re about to make me repeat myself for the hundredth time, you’ll get nothing out of him if we lay this on him too soon.”

“Is it that or that you just don’t want to confront him with it?”

Tony didn’t answer, but the pause in the argument didn’t leave Peter with enough time to properly question what they would eventually lay on him, what could possibly be worse than his current uncertain situation.

The uncertainty, thought Peter, was the worst part. The never knowing how to feel, and flip flopping about what he felt, sometimes more than once in one day.

“Look, Tony, I know you care about him, like a son even, it’s as plain as day,” said Steve. “

“But that’s why we need to move faster. Quicker he knows the truth, and the quicker we find out if he can tell us where Richard is, the quicker he can have a normal life, with you and Pepper.”

“Cap – “

“Tony you couldn’t let that boy go if he really were the monster Hydra wanted him to be.”

A twigged snapped behind Peter, and he turned to see Bucky Barnes looming over him like a stone pillar.

“Eavesdropping?”

“Uh, I wasn’t trying too,” he lied, his eyes lingering on Bucky’s metal arm. “I was just looking for Tony.”

“Well you found him,” said Bucky.

“Why aren’t you helping me?” asked Peter. He blurted the question out before he could think about it, before he could spend another second processing what Steve had said and thinking about life after this, whatever this was.

“Helping you…?” His normally robotic, withdrawn voice was filled with confusion, though his eyes remained pools of black.

“Escape. Get out of here,” said Peter. Suddenly, it seemed a lot more pressing than it ever did. Peter’s eyes darted around, at all the trees and the silhouette of the Avenger’s Compound, briefly wondering, just for a flicker of a second, if he could make a break for it. “G-go back to Hydra. You owe them, don’t you? Owe us.” Peter’s eyes lingered on Bucky’s metal arm. “We made you stronger.”

“You had nothing to do with it,” said Bucky. He was frowning and blinking. Something had crossed his face, pity, maybe, and it made Peter shuffle his feet. “And it wasn’t my choice.” 

He searched his head for something to say, but it was empty and spinning and lost. He was both relieved and terrified when he noticed Tony and Steve coming out from the tree and approaching them.

“Hey kid… what’re you doing up?” asked Tony. His hand on his arm steadied him. It was strong grip, keeping him from losing his balance.

“I just – I don’t know, really.”

“He was looking for you,” Bucky repeated.

The adults looked at each other, trading glances and communicating in a way Peter couldn’t understand. He didn’t mind it, though. He used it as a chance to get his breath back, to correct it in a way that made it look as if he were really breathing easy.

After what felt like an eternity, Tony spoke up, “Well you found me. Let’s go back to the tent. It’s past your bedtime.”

Peter allowed him, after mumbling goodnight to Steve and Bucky, to push him back into the tent, where he didn’t fall back asleep and where he avoided Tony’s worried glances.

*

The gym was stale and stagnant.

It was empty, except for Peter and Steve, and the quiet, the sweaty air and bad circulation and the plain off-grey walls didn’t represent what was happening on the inside. That he was all fire, frustration, rage. That he wanted a storm, wanted one since the campout, but all he had was this boring, plain room with an old man who wouldn’t punch back. 

Not even the punching bag swayed when Peter hit it, thanks to the Captain holding it still. A couple of times he punched so hard Steve had to readjust his footing to keep it still, but the satisfaction that brought dried up by the time he took the next swing.

It wasn’t an accident, then, just a few minutes later when Peter missed the bag and hit Steve on the arm.

“Hey,” said Steve. He let go of the punching bag, and without an anchor it swayed back and forth on the chains holding it up. “Watch it.”

“Let’s spar for real,” said Peter, breathless.

He aimed another punch at Steve’s arm. It was meant to be playful, but Steve caught his fist and shoved him away with a gentleness that only made the storm whirling in Peter’s chest rage harder.

“That’s… not a good idea.” 

“Why not?” asked Peter. “Because Tony said?”

“No, because it isn’t a good idea.”

Peter swung again, and again, each time hitting Steve a bit harder, each time becoming angrier as the man just stood there and let him punch. He punched Captain America until his hands hurt, and then gave him a hard stove.

“Just hit me back!”

He hadn’t meant to shout, but his order came out loud anyway. His words echoed around the gym, and around in Peter’s ears. He didn’t like how frantic he sounded, didn’t like how frantic he felt.

He hated it.

He hated his life from before he was taken away and he hated his life now. Hated how morally superior the Avenger’s pretended to be, like Peter’s family and his old life was dirt that should be scrubbed away, like they offered something better. Most of all Peter hated that this, that his life at the Compound _was_ better and how fast it’d become obvious.

Steve stood, stoic, unmoving, except the small, worried frown that was etched across his face. Slowly, he shook his head. “I think we’re done for today.”

Peter dropped his fists and glared, before turning around and marching off towards the exit. His mind still roaring about all the ways his life was unfair.

Sitting at the top of the list, the thing that shouted the loudest, was that he didn’t have a choice, not now, but also not back then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! idkkk when the next chapter will be as I'm working on a few other things but the next one is Tony and Peter Real Talk !!! hope you enjoyed and thanks for being patient!!


	7. galaxies away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so I'm back now please enjoy this short chapter of this fic that hasn't updated in forever

Tony would rather talk to the plant.

Scratch that.

He’d rather talk to one of his bots.

They understood him, probably in the same way Spike understood Peter, and Tony could only wish communication were that easy between him and the boy. Pretend that he didn’t struggle searching for the right words, for some magic phrase that would make Peter understand what had happened to him, why it was wrong and what needed to happen next.

Most of the time Tony just felt young and drunk, stumbling over his words the way he’d stumbled back to his dorm back in college, a time that seemed both near and far away from him now.

Nat hadn’t helped his situation.

“So you’re finally interrogating the kid?” she’d asked, after Cap the brief meeting he’d called following Peter’s meltdown in the gym.

It wasn’t an interrogation, Tony reminded, as he stood with his hand hovering outside of Peter’s closed bedroom door. Interrogations were easy. Tony didn’t mind much doing whatever needed to be done to get a Hydra agent to talk.

An interrogation was something done to a criminal or a terrorist, someone who’d made choices for themselves. Not some clueless kid. Not a teenager that looked at Tony with haunted, brown eyes. It was like rewinding time and looking in the mirror and it was no shock Tony fought to say the right things, to explain this situation.

He couldn’t explain it back then, either.

Tony took a deep breath, then dropped his hand back down to his side. Still debating, still wondering if he could possibly put this off for another few days. Really he was just stalling. He knew he couldn’t delay the evitable any longer, not after what Steve had told him happened in the gym.

Peter was far from stupid. He knew when something was being kept out of reach, and as long as he did, the Avengers wouldn’t be able to get him to tell them what time it was let alone the possible whereabouts of Richard Parker.

He took another breath, then knocked, then entered the door immediately after, without waiting to be given permission. Peter was in the middle of muttering go away when the door came fully open and Tony saw him sitting on the bed, his back against the headboard.

Peter pulled his knees to his chest as Tony wandered further into the room instead of listening to the teenager’s orders.

“Don’t really wanna talk right now,” said Peter.

“Neither do I,” said Tony, as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “But unfortunately I’m a grown-up and Pep says that means doing things I don’t want to do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, she says that all the time, actually.”

“No,” said Peter. “I mean are you sure you’re a grown-up?”

Tony let that one slid. He gripped the edge of the bed, then got straight to the point, or at least, on the path that would bring them to the point. “Steve said you beat him up. Not cool, kid, next time you plan on using Cap as a punching bag I gotta be around to watch.”

Peter rolled his eyes, then looked away. Under the window, sat Spike and his children, looking green and healthy in the afternoon sunlight. When Peter didn’t offer up a response, Tony continued.

“I guess it probably wasn’t much a show, anyway.” He sighed, feigning boredom. “Steve said he was pretty sure you were holding back.”

Steve didn’t so much as say it as it was their working theory, based on what they found with what little of Richard’s research they were able to recover. They couldn’t decide what it was, whether Peter held back to protect others or if he held back because he wasn’t tapping into his true potential, if he truly didn’t know how powerful he was.

“Can you just go?” asked Peter. “I’m not in the mood for your lame jokes that I really don’t understand.”

“How do you know they’re lame if you don’t understand them?” questioned Tony, then pushed forward, realizing that wasn’t important. “I got you, though, I’m not in the mood for jokes, either. Let’s have some truth instead.”

Peter folded his arms around his legs and returned his stare to Tony. His eyes lightened, now interested in what Tony was going to say, but they quickly narrowed again, as if he remembered he was supposed to be angry.

“You know, when I was a kid, younger than you,” started Tony. “I built my first robot. It was a stupid little thing, but I loved him. Then one day I got confident enough to show my old man. It was a big mistake. He picked it apart, then made me take it apart, to improve it, except when I rebuilt it, it just wasn’t the same.”

“That… that’s really lame,” offered Peter, looking confused and hesitant, maybe sensing where the conversation was headed. He scrunched up his face, the way he did when he was deep in thought or conflicted by some invisible battle, then said, “Maybe your father and my father should get together and go bowling.”

“A movie reference, huh?” asked Tony. “I give you a traumatic childhood story and you give me breakfast club?”

Peter shrugged, and truthfully Tony didn’t mind. He would take it as progress, knowing all too well what it was like to only be able to communicate through pop culture references. Hell, it was progress Peter even knew any pop culture references to begin with.

“He’s not –“ started Peter, bore his wide brown eyes into Tony’s. “He’s really not all that bad. He just, gets angry sometimes. I upset him, you know? His expectations are insanely high, he just really wants the best.”

“Yeah, I remember the excuses, I told myself the same ones, for awhile,” said Tony. “Except this isn’t a regular case of parental relationship angst. Your pops is serial killer, and he did a number on you, even.”

“No – no way, it isn’t like that, okay,” said Peter, his voice picking up speed and hitching up an octave. “He just – it’s sacrifices, for science.”

“And what field of study would that be, exactly?” asked Tony. Keeping his tone gentle. Steady. Trying to contrast Peter’s fast and panicked thoughts. “How to turn my son into a spider? What’s that doing for society? Not exactly curing cancer.”

“No, but he’s making progress. Progress is good, right? And it doesn’t come easy, some people – some people just have to die. That’s life. Some people were made to be sacrificed. For the greater good.”

Tony stared at the kid, recognizing that the words spilling out of his mouth didn’t belong to him, but were recited from memory. Like some sort of script that ran through his head, like a wall made of words, protecting Peter with justifications about how the first years of his life were spent. Tony didn’t want to be the one to bulldoze right over what seemed to be a perfectly constructed security system, but he didn’t have a choice.

“You don’t believe that.”

“You don’t what I believe,” said Peter. “We hardly even know each other.”

“Say that all you want, but it’s not true anymore.” Tony felt oddly offended, remembering seeing Peter for on security footage. Seeing the boy who’d been abused his own life go out of his way to help a rabbit and feeling like he knew exactly who he was every moment since. “I see you for exactly who you are. You care about things, and I know you don’t like what your dad was doing in that basement. What he did to you.”

“He gave me powers,” said Peter. “It’s a gift.”

“He hits you,” said Tony, stating plainly what Peter would only hint about in riddles and in flinches. “That’s not normal, and it isn’t okay.”

“It’s whatever.” Peter was unphased, unflinching, for once. “It isn’t all the time, and I’ve already told you, I upset him sometimes.”

Tony studied Peter, and instantly knew he was getting anywhere with him, not like this. He knew he was right when he told Steve this conversation was happening to soon, and wasn’t going to go down the way Steve and the rest of the team wanted it to. Most of all Tony knew what it was like to want to believe something so badly, wanted to believe you came from somewhere good, that any statement to the contrary could never be considered.

“Okay, let’s back up,” he decided, out loud. “Why do you think Richard give you these powers?”

Peter blinked back at him. He shrugged. “I don’t know. He trusted me with them, maybe. He knew his experiment would work and he didn’t want to waste it on someone who’d go rogue with power.”

Tony spent enough time pouring through Richard’s records to know that wasn’t the truth, no matter how badly Peter wanted to believe it. He supposed they’d never know for sure why Richard Parker decided to use his only son like a lab rat, but Tony guessed he’d simply run out of people to experiment on, so he used the only person left around.

“The night we came and rescued you -  
  


“-kidnapped me.”

“The night we came and kidnapped you,” said Tony. “Your bag was packed. Where were you going?”

Peter straightened his back against the headboard. “What? So you’re interrogating me now?”

“I already know the answer, Pete, I’m just trying to get you see something.”

“We were moving,” said Peter. “We were… finally leaving the manor. Moving somewhere normal, where we could be an actual family and there’d be kids my age, like a school.”

“No, that’s not –“

“-yes it is.” The words were too fast, leaving Tony to believe that Peter had already suspected the truth. He was too wise, too prone to eavesdropping, to ever be completely in the dark.

“You might have been moving there, but Richard had no intention of leaving that manor and all his research. He was pawning you off to Hydra, so you could be their new weapon.”

“What?” asked Peter, looking as if Tony had slapped him. He started shaking his head again. “No way. I would never agree – my dad would _never_ …”

“That was our mission,” continued Tony. “We were going to that manor to intercept a weapon before it was transported. At the time we didn’t know, well we didn’t know that weapon was just a kid.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not, kid. I wish I was.”

Peter looked away from Tony, and towards the window. “This _is_ an interrogation. You’re just trying to trick me into telling you where my dad went. You’re trying to turn me against him.”

Tony raised an eyebrow and waited to Peter to look back at him and elaborate.

“I overheard Nat and Steve talking.”

“Eavesdropping is really becoming your thing, huh?”

“It’s kind of hard to avoid when you have ears like mine.”

“Remember that night? We were about to get on the jet, and you told me you were afraid to fly, because your mom died in a plane crash.”

“You told me when we first met that your mom died on a plane,” said Tony.

“Yeah.”

There was an edge to his voice, there was a lack of trust, and Tony wished he could stop, but he supposed there was some truth to what Peter had insisted. It was an interrogation. Peter, possibly, knew something that could save people, save the Avenger’s a headache and a whole lot of work, and at the moment, it was Tony’s job to obtain that information.

“She didn’t die on a plane.”

“Okay, well, then, how did she die?”

“I don’t know, but there’s no flight logs with her name on them, and Richard was pretty meticulous about his records…” Tony let his voice trail on. “Your dad’s the one who told you how she died?”

“He didn’t kill her.”

“Never said he did.”

“You’re implying it.”

Tony exhaled, and rubbed his forehead. Things were going exactly like he didn’t want them to go, badly. It was too soon and too harsh and these were things Peter needed to hear, but Tony wished it wasn’t happening like this, wished that he was just helping him, instead of needing something from him.

“Peter,” said Tony. “I know you know, maybe deep down, that what he’s doing is wrong, and I know you know it’s my job to stop him, or a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt, probably killed… so if you know where he might be, you need to tell us or you’re going to regret it.” Peter opened his mouth, but knowing what he was about to say, Tony cut him off. “That isn’t a threat. I know you. I know you’ll be beating yourself up about it when you finally accept what’s been going on.”

Peter glared back at him, nothing but fire and fury lit in his eyes, until it fizzled out and his eyes drifted back over to the window one last time. “I’ll think about it.”

He would take it, and he would take it without pointing out to Peter that technically he’d just confirmed he did know where Richard might be hiding out.

“Now can you please get out of my room.”

“Uh, yeah,” said Tony “Sure, I’ll just let you… think about it.”

Tony left the door cracked behind him, feeling guilty, and hoping that taking one step towards finding Richard didn’t put him galaxies away from helping his son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading and being patient with me if you're still reading this you're a saint also I do plan on finishing this fic, but just know that updates will be slow as I'm planning to do whumptober!!

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to seek-rest and frostysunflowers for hyping me up last night to post this <3 you guys are amazing and I love you 
> 
> next time I post it'll be the next chapter of this or my christmas fic, which is so fluffy and magical and it's going to make up for the whumpy, angstyness that is this fic 
> 
> kudos and/or comments let me know what you think 
> 
> [or come yell at me on tumblr](https://hailing-stars.tumblr.com)


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